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Lemon Ice

A chilled lemon-flavored dessert made by freezing a lemon-infused syrup with egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Ice

Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil water and sugar together until well dissolved and skimmed.

Infuse and strain

  1. Let the mixture cool, then add lemon juice and sliced rind.

  2. Allow to infuse for 1 hour.

  3. Strain the mixture into a freezer.

Freeze

  1. Once it begins to freeze, add the beaten egg whites.

  2. For a creamier texture, add milk or cream after it starts to freeze, using less water.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Dissolved in boiling water to sweeten the ice and keep it soft after freezing.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the flavour of the ice.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic oils and a more intense lemon flavour during infusion.
Eggs
Whites are beaten and folded in to add air and a lighter, smoother texture.
Milk or cream
Adds fat, which gives a creamier, softer texture to the frozen result.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten egg whites once the mixture begins to freeze. If the mixture is fully frozen, the whites cannot be evenly incorporated, so the ice stays dense instead of light. Adding them at the start of freezing lets them distribute and trap air as the mixture firms up.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk. 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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