Name: Cherry Water Ice
Ingredients: 1 lb Kentish cherries; juice of 2 lemons; 1 pint water; 1 pint clarified sugar; 1 glass noyeau; 4 or 5 drops cochineal

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 ↓

Cherry Water Ice

Ingredients

Directions

Remove the pits and bruise the cherries in a mortar.
Add the lemon juice, water, and sugar; mix well.
Add the cochineal and noyeau.
Strain the mixture and freeze according to the instructions in recipe No. 2295.

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.

Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 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

Cherries: Provide the main fruit flavour and colour, with bruising releasing juice into the base.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the cherry flavour and balances the sugar.
Sugar: Sweetens the ice and lowers its freezing point so it stays softer and scoopable.

“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.