Why it works: Orange and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Orange Water Ice
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar and water for 5 minutes.
Cool the mixture, then add the grated rind and juice of the oranges.
Freeze the mixture until solid.
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.
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Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange and sugar 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
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the water to sweeten the ice and keeps it from freezing rock-hard.
- Orange juice
- Provides the main citrus flavour and acidity, and the liquid that becomes the ice.
- Orange rind
- Adds aromatic oils that give the ice a stronger orange fragrance.
The step that matters
Cool the mixture, then add the grated rind and juice of the oranges.. Heat dulls the fresh flavour of citrus juice and drives off the aromatic oils in the rind. Waiting until the syrup has cooled keeps the orange taste bright and fragrant in the finished ice.
“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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