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Dessert

Ices, Sherbets, Etc

A frozen dessert made from grape juice, orange juice, sugar, egg white, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,771 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Ices, Sherbets, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the juices

  1. Sweeten the grape juice to taste.

  2. Add sugar to the orange juice until dissolved.

  3. Combine the orange juice with the grape juice.

Freeze and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a freezer and freeze.

  2. When nearly frozen, remove the mixture from the freezer.

  3. Beat the egg white until light and mix with powdered sugar.

  4. Fold the egg white mixture into the frozen mixture.

  5. Pack the mixture and let it ripen.

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. Grape + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,771 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  4. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Grape + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Egg white
Whipped egg white adds airy lightness and a smoother, less icy texture to the sorbet.
Sugar
Sweetens the juice and lowers its freezing point, keeping the sorbet softer when frozen.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the whipped egg white, sweetening it without grittiness.
Grape juice
Provides the main flavour base and liquid for the sorbet.
Orange juice
Adds citrus acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet grape flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Once the base is nearly frozen, the whipped egg white must be folded in gently so it keeps its air. Overmixing deflates it, leaving a denser, icier sorbet.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, orange, 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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