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Dessert

Raspberry Water Ice

A chilled dessert made from raspberries, sugar, lemon juice, water, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raspberry Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Combine raspberries, sugar, and lemon juice in a bowl; stir well and let sit for 1 hour.

  2. Press the mixture through a sieve into a clean bowl.

  3. Add water to the raspberry mixture and stir.

Freeze

  1. When the mixture is partly frozen, fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Continue freezing until fully set.

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 + lemontop 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).

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

Red raspberries
Provide the main flavor, color, and fruit body of the ice.
Sugar
Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point so it stays softer.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the raspberry flavor.
Water
Dilutes the fruit base to give a lighter, icier texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into the partly frozen mixture to add air and a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites when partly frozen. If the mixture is too liquid, the whites deflate and the ice turns dense; if fully frozen, they cannot blend in evenly. Partial freezing gives a slushy base that holds the air.

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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