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 Barley Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Combine the sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, and cold water in a small preserving pan.
Place the pan over medium heat and bring to a boil without stirring.
Boil until steam rises, then continue boiling until the desired consistency is reached.
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
- Provides the bulk of the sweetness and, once boiled, sets into a hard, glassy candy.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and aroma; the juice and rind flavour the sugar syrup.
The step that matters
Boil without stirring. Stirring a boiling sugar syrup can encourage crystals to form on the pan and in the syrup, making the candy grainy instead of clear and smooth.
“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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