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
Boil the sugar
Put the clarified sugar into a deep copper pan with a spout and boil over a brisk charcoal fire.
Dip a piece of tobacco pipe in water, then dip the pipe in the sugar.
Hold the pipe in water for half a minute.
Check if the sugar comes off the pipe and is brittle. If the sugar is not brittle, continue boiling.
Once the sugar is brittle, add the lemon juice and the essence of lemon.
Check again for brittleness.
Remove the pan from heat.
Shape and store
Grease a marble slab with sweet oil.
Pour the barley sugar onto the slab in long strips, about six inches long and one inch wide.
As the strips cool, twist them.
Place the twisted strips on tin plates.
Once completely cool, store the barley sugar in a glass or tin canister, covered tightly to keep out air.
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 brittle glassy candy base when boiled to the hard-crack stage.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing.
The step that matters
Testing for brittleness before removing the pan. Sugar must reach the hard-crack stage to set brittle. Removing it early leaves a soft, sticky candy that will not hold its twist, while overcooking can scorch it and give a bitter taste.
“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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