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Dessert

Lemon

A frozen lemon syrup made from sugar, water, lemon juice and rind.

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

Lemon

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan to make a syrup without boiling.

  2. Add lemon juice and grated rind, using only the yellow outer rind.

Strain, cool and freeze

  1. Strain the mixture and let it cool completely.

  2. Freeze the mixture once it is cool.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Granulated sugar
Dissolves into the water to form the syrup, adding sweetness and keeping the frozen texture softer.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity and bright lemon flavor that defines the dish.
Grated lemon rind
Adds fragrant lemon aroma from the oils in the yellow outer peel.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely before freezing. Freezing a warm syrup slows and uneven ice formation, which can leave large ice crystals and a coarse, icy texture. Cooling first lets the mixture freeze more evenly and smoothly.

“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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