Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Kirsch Punch
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
In a dish, combine powdered sugar and cold water.
Grate in the lemon rind and squeeze in the lemon juice; beat for 5 minutes.
Add kirsch and mix well.
Strain through a sieve into a freezer.
Freeze and churn
Place the lid on the freezer and surround it with broken ice mixed with rock salt.
Turn the handle briskly for 2 minutes.
Lift the lid and detach the punch from the sides and bottom with a wooden spoon.
Re-cover and turn the handle briskly for 3 more minutes.
Repeat the detaching and turning process 3 more times.
Serve
Serve in small punch glasses.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the punch and balances the acidity of the lemon.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and bright flavour that cut through the sweetness.
- Kirsch
- Adds the main aroma and spirit flavour to the punch.
- Cold water
- Forms the liquid base that freezes into a slush.
The step that matters
Detaching the punch from the sides and bottom. Ice crystals form on the cold freezer walls and stop the mixture freezing evenly. Scraping them off and re-mixing keeps the texture smooth and icy rather than hard and layered.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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