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 ↓
Lemonade
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil sugar and water for 12 minutes to make syrup.
Add lemon juice and cool the mixture.
Serve
Dilute with ice-water to suit your taste.
For a concentrated lemon syrup, bottle and store for later use.
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.
-
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Sugar
- Dissolves into the boiled water to make a sweet syrup that balances the lemon's sourness.
- Lemon juice
- Provides the acidity and bright lemon flavour that defines the drink.
The step that matters
Boil sugar and water for 12 minutes. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully into the water, producing a smooth, evenly sweet syrup. Undissolved sugar left in the syrup would make the drink gritty and uneven in sweetness.
“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.
More lemonade recipes
You might also like
Lemon Whey33 recipes
Lemon Wine31 recipes
Lemon Squash10 recipes
Lemon Essence8 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.