Name: Welch's Grape Punch
Ingredients: 2 lemons; 1 orange; 1 small cup sugar

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Welch's Grape Punch

Ingredients

2 lemons
1 orange
1 small cup sugar

Directions

Take the juice of 2 lemons.
Take the juice of 1 orange.
Add 1 pt. Welch's grape juice.
Add 1 small cup sugar.
Add 1 pt. water.
Add pineapple juice if desired.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

123Calories

2 gProtein

0 gFat

31 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 3 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Orange	1 medium (131g)	62
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Warren, Pa. Presbyterian church. Second auxiliary missionary society. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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.

Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,634 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

Lemons: Lemon juice adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Orange: Orange juice adds fruity aroma and some sweetness.
Sugar: Sugar sweetens the punch and rounds out the acidity.
Grape juice (in the method): Grape juice supplies most of the flavor and sweetness.

“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.