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Dessert

Lemon Syrup

A sweet syrup made from boiled sugar, water, tartaric acid, ginger, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Lemon Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Pour six quarts of boiling water, five pounds of white sugar, one and a half ounces of tartaric acid, and a little whole ginger; let stand until cold; then add one small bottle of essence of lemon. Strain and bottle.

  2. Pare off the yellow rind of the lemon, slice the lemon and put a layer of lemon and a thick layer of sugar in a deep plate; cover close with a saucer, and set in a warm place.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

506Calories
13 gProtein
1 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Waternot in our table0

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

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.

  1. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and helps preserve the syrup.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Essence of lemon
Supplies the lemon aroma and flavour to the finished syrup.

The step that matters

Let the syrup stand until cold before adding the essence of lemon. Lemon essence is aromatic and volatile, so adding it to very hot liquid can drive off much of its fragrance. Cooling first keeps the lemon flavour brighter in the bottled syrup.

“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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