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 ↓
Violet Wafers
Ingredients
Directions
Squeeze the juice from the lemons into a small pan.
Add enough powdered sugar to the lemon juice until it thickens to the consistency of lemon wafers.
Stir in a strong essence of violets.
Add a little blue food coloring to achieve a nice color.
If the mixture is too thin, add more sugar.
Spread the mixture onto wafer paper.
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.
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Lemons
- Provide the juice that gives the wafers their tart, bright flavor.
- Fine powdered sugar
- Thickens the lemon juice and adds sweetness to the wafers.
The step that matters
Adding the powdered sugar. Sugar thickens the lemon juice gradually as it dissolves and absorbs liquid. Adding too much at once or too little can leave the mixture either stiff or runny, so add it in small amounts and check the consistency.
“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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