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Dessert

To Make Lemon Syrup

A clear lemon syrup made by dissolving sugar in lemon juice and simmering with lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Make Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Stir until the sugar dissolves completely.

  3. Skim off any foam until the surface is clear.

  4. Add the lemon peel and simmer gently for a few minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a flannel or fine mesh.

Bottle and store

  1. Let it cool, then bottle and cork it tightly.

  2. Store in a cool place.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Lemon juice
Provides the acidity and the main lemon flavour of the syrup.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, at this quantity, helps preserve it against spoilage.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic oils and bitter-citrus flavour to the syrup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam. Foam rises as the sugar dissolves and the mixture heats. Removing it keeps the syrup clear and stops impurities from clouding it or spoiling it in storage.

“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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