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 ↓
A Caramel
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar until it reaches the crack stage, where it breaks with a noise like glass.
Add 5-6 drops of lemon juice to prevent graining.
Remove from heat and place the bottom of the pan in cold water to stop burning.
Monitor the color closely to achieve the desired caramel shade.
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
- Sugar
- Melts, then browns and caramelises to give caramel its flavour and colour.
- Lemon juice
- Its acidity helps keep sugar crystals from forming, so the caramel stays smooth.
The step that matters
Monitor the color closely. Sugar moves from golden to burnt within seconds, and it keeps darkening from residual heat after leaving the stove. Watching closely and cooling the pan bottom stops the browning at the desired shade.
“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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