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Lemon Syrup

A sweet, tart syrup made from citric and tartaric acids, sugar, lemon rind and juice, boiled water, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a large bowl, combine citric acid, tartaric acid, Epsom salts, and white sugar.

  2. Grate the rind of the lemons and add it to the mixture along with the lemon juice.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and stir until the sugar dissolves.

Finish and bottle

  1. Once cooled, gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Strain the mixture through muslin into a clean bottle.

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.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

White sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and dissolves into the syrup to give body.
Citric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the lemon flavour.
Tartaric acid
Adds a further tart, sharp note that brightens the syrup.
Lemon juice
Supplies fresh lemon flavour and additional acidity.
Whites of eggs
Beaten whites are folded in to help clarify the syrup as it is strained.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites only once the mixture has cooled. Egg whites coagulate when hot, so adding them to boiling liquid would cook them into lumps rather than letting them bind impurities. Cooling first keeps the whites loose so they can gather particles that the muslin then removes, giving a clear syrup.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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