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 Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
In a bowl, combine powdered sugar and lemon extract.
Add enough water to dissolve the mixture.
Cook and shape
Boil the mixture until it forms a crisp texture when dropped in cold water.
Drop spoonfuls onto buttered plates to cool.
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
- Powdered sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the sugar base that sets into a crisp drop as it cools.
- Lemon extract
- Adds the lemon aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Boiling until crisp in cold water. The sugar must be cooked long enough that little water remains. Stopping early leaves the drops soft and sticky, while overcooking darkens the sugar and makes it bitter.
“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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