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Sherbet Powder
Rub half a pound of loaf sugar upon the rind of a lemon till the yellow part is taken off. Crush the sugar to powder, and mix intimately with it four ounces of tartaric acid and four ounces of bicarbonate of soda. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve; put it into a dry bottle, and keep it well corked until wanted. If liked, forty or fifty drops of essence of lemon may be used instead of the lemon-rind. The powder must be taken up with a dry tea-spoon. Sufficient for one pound of sherbet. A tea-spoonful of this powder stirred into a tumbler of water will make a refreshing summer drink. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. per pound.
A dry effervescent drink powder rather than a frozen dessert. Everything here hinges on keeping water out of the mixture, since acid and bicarbonate react the moment they meet moisture.
- Dryness above allAny trace of damp sets off the fizz in the bottle and the powder goes flat and lumpy. Work on a dry day if you can, use a dry sieve and bowl, and store in a tightly sealed glass jar; the instruction about the dry teaspoon is the most important line in the recipe.
- Loaf sugarSold in hard cones or blocks, which is why it can be rubbed against a lemon rind to pick up the oil and then crushed. Granulated sugar works for the rubbing if you press it against the fruit with the back of a spoon, but caster or icing sugar dissolves the effect; icing sugar also carries anti-caking starch that clouds the drink.
- WeightsHalf a pound of sugar is 225 g, four ounces is 115 g. The finished quantity is about 1 lb (450 g) of powder, as the recipe says.
- Tartaric acidStill sold for brewing, winemaking and confectionery, and food grade is what you want. Citric acid is the modern substitute and tastes rounder and more lemony; it is not a weight-for-weight swap.
- Essence of lemonThe Victorian article was lemon oil in alcohol, close to modern lemon extract; forty to fifty drops is roughly half a teaspoon. Add it to the sugar and let the sugar dry thoroughly before mixing in the acid and soda, or the alcohol will trigger the reaction.
- ServingStir into a tumbler (about 250 ml) of cold water and drink at once while it is still working. It is noticeably better with ice water, and a squeeze of fresh lemon compensates for the flatness of the dried flavouring.
- SodiumA teaspoon of this powder carries something on the order of 300-400 mg of sodium from the bicarbonate, so it is a glass or two a day rather than an all-day drink.
The word comes through Turkish şerbet from Arabic sharbat, a sweetened fruit drink, and reached English in the seventeenth century meaning exactly that: a cold beverage, not an ice. Dry sherbet powders like this one belong to the nineteenth-century enthusiasm for effervescence, the same impulse that produced soda water, seidlitz powders and the chemist's soda fountain; the fizz is simply carbon dioxide released as the tartaric acid meets the bicarbonate in the glass. It is essentially a store-cupboard preparation, made up in bulk and kept corked for the summer. A similar mixture, packed with a stick of liquorice or a bag of boiled sweets, became the sherbet of British sweetshops, which is why the name still means fizzy powder to British children and frozen dessert to American ones.