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Plain Lemon Water Ice

A chilled lemon water flavored with sugar and egg whites, served frozen.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓

Plain Lemon Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Cut the thin yellow rind from the lemons and place it with the juice in a jug.

  2. Boil the water and sugar together for five minutes.

  3. Pour the hot syrup over the lemons.

Finish and freeze

  1. Let the mixture stand until completely cold.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Add the whipped egg whites.

  4. Freeze until firm.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemons
Provide the main flavour and acidity, with rind oils adding aroma to the syrup.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves into the hot water to form a syrup.
Eggs
Whites are whipped to add air and a lighter, smoother texture to the frozen ice.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand until completely cold. Adding egg whites or freezing while the syrup is still warm can cause uneven freezing and a coarser texture. Full cooling lets the mixture chill evenly before whites are folded in.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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