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 ↓
A Spun Sugar Bee-hive
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Boil the clarified sugar in a small brass pan, adding lemon juice.
If the sugar threatens to boil over, add a drop of sweet oil.
Mould twenty or thirty bees from gum paste, making holes for wings.
Use a large round mould shaped like a bee-hive.
Make the hive
Spin the hot sugar inside the mould, ensuring fine threads without blotches.
Let the spun sugar cool, then remove it from the mould onto a dish.
Decorate
Decorate the bee-hive with gum paste borders and leaves.
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
- Clarified sugar
- Forms the fine, glassy threads that make up the spun sugar hive.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that helps keep the boiled sugar from crystallising.
- Gum paste
- Holds its shape as it dries, so it works for bees and decorative borders.
The step that matters
Spin the hot sugar inside the mould. Sugar must be hot and fluid to pull into fine threads. If it cools too much it stiffens and forms thick strands, and moisture or crystals cause blotches.
“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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