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 Syeup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Place the sugar in a basin and pour the boiling water over it.
Stir until dissolved and let it cool completely.
Add the essence of lemon and tartaric acid, then bottle for use.
Serve
Mix 1 tablespoon of the syrup with a tumbler of water to make excellent lemonade.
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 sweetness and body, dissolving in hot water to form the syrup.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that gives the syrup its tart, lemony bite.
- Essence of lemon
- Supplies the lemon aroma and flavour.
The step that matters
Let the syrup cool completely before adding the essence and tartaric acid. Delicate aromatic compounds in lemon essence are volatile and can dissipate when heated, so adding them to very hot syrup can dull the flavour. Cooling first keeps the aroma stronger.
“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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