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
Boil sugar and water for 12 minutes to make syrup.
Add lemon juice to the syrup.
Cool the mixture and dilute with ice water to taste.
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 water to form a syrup that sweetens the drink and balances the acidity.
- Lemon juice
- Supplies the sour, acidic flavour that gives lemonade its character.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and water into syrup. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully into the water so it blends evenly into the drink. Undissolved sugar would leave grainy sweetness that does not mix into the cold lemonade.
“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.