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
The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the paste
Place the sifted sugar in a plate.
Squeeze the lemons over the sugar and mix until it forms a thick paste.
Dry the drops
Cover a sheet of paper with drops the size of a farthing.
Place the paper in a 300°F (150°C) oven until the drops are completely dry.
Remove the drops from the paper.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the bulk of the drops and gives them their sweetness and solid, dry structure.
- Lemons
- Their juice dissolves the sugar into a thick paste and adds sharp, sour lemon flavor.
The step that matters
Drying the drops in the oven. Sugar paste must dry slowly at low heat until fully set. Too much heat can melt or brown the sugar and make the drops sticky or discolored, while stopping early leaves them soft and tacky.
“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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