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Dessert

Water Ices and Sherbets

A frozen dessert made from water, sugar, optional fruit jelly, and egg white for sherbet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Water Ices and Sherbets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the water ice

  1. Mix water and sugar in a freezer according to ice cream freezing directions.

  2. Turn the crank slowly for a few minutes. Rest for 5 minutes. Repeat until the water ice is frozen hard.

  3. Remove the dasher. Scrape down the sides. Beat the water ice with a paddle.

  4. Cover the can and let it ripen for 2-3 hours.

Make the sherbet

  1. For sherbet, follow the same steps until the mixture is in the freezer.

  2. Turn the dasher rapidly until frozen hard.

  3. Beat the egg white until frothy. Add powdered sugar. Beat until it holds peaks.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the sherbet. Cover and let it ripen.

Mold and serve

  1. Wet a mold with cold water. Fill with the frozen mixture and pack tightly. Cover.

  2. Pack in salt and ice.

  3. Wash the mold in cold water. Remove the lid. Turn the sherbet out onto a plate.

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Water
Forms the bulk of the water ice, which freezes into a light, icy texture.
Sugar
Lowers the freezing point and keeps the frozen mixture softer and less icy.
Egg white
Whipped to peaks, it adds foam and lightness to the sherbet.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg white and helps it hold its peaks.

The step that matters

Beating the egg white to peaks. Egg white must be whipped until it holds peaks before folding into the sherbet. Under-beaten white stays runny and will not lighten the mixture, while over-beaten white turns grainy and dry.

“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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