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 ↓
Barley-Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil clarified sugar until it reaches a crack stage.
Add 2-3 drops of lemon juice to prevent graining.
Remove the pan from heat.
Dip the pan in cold water to stop cooking.
Let the sugar cool slightly.
Shape the sweets
Pour the cooled sugar onto an oiled marble surface.
Cut the sugar into small pieces with scissors.
Quickly roll the pieces out like wax, aiming for uniform size.
Optionally, add a drop of essence for flavor.
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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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
- Clarified sugar
- Forms the hard, glassy candy structure as it cooks to the crack stage.
- Lemon juice
- Acid helps prevent the sugar from crystallising into a grainy texture.
The step that matters
Boil the sugar to the crack stage. Sugar must reach the correct temperature to set hard and brittle at room temperature. Undercooked sugar stays sticky and soft, while overcooked sugar turns bitter and brown.
“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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