Skip to main content
Dessert

Rose, Lemon, Ginger, and Other Lozenges

A sweet lozenge made with gum arabic, sugar, and rose, lemon, or ginger flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and rose are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,584 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Rose, Lemon, Ginger, and Other Lozenges

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Dissolve gum arabic in water to create gum-water.

  2. For color, mix food coloring into the gum-water before adding it to the sugar.

  3. Mix in sugar until a thick paste forms.

  4. Add 10 to 12 drops of your chosen flavoring (oil of rose, essential oil of lemons, or essence of ginger). If desired, add a few more drops of flavoring and mix well.

Shape the lozenges

  1. Roll out the mixture and cut into lozenges.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gum arabic
Dissolved in water to form a binder that holds the sugar into a cohesive paste.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and sets into a firm, solid lozenge as it dries.
Otto of rose or essential oil of lemons or essence of ginger
Supplies the aroma and flavor that defines the lozenge.

The step that matters

Mixing the sugar into the gum-water. Sugar must be added gradually so the paste thickens evenly without lumps. Adding too much at once makes it hard to work and can leave dry pockets that crumble when cut.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes