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 ↓
Lemonade Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Moisten the sugar with enough water to absorb it and boil until it forms a clear syrup.
Add the lemon juice and grated rinds, stirring well without boiling.
Bottle the syrup immediately and cork it once it has cooled.
Serve
To make lemonade, mix a little syrup with cold water.
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
- Sugar
- Forms the clear syrup base and provides sweetness for the lemonade.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity and sharp lemon flavour to the syrup.
- Lemon rind
- Contributes aromatic lemon oils for fragrance and flavour.
The step that matters
Adding the lemon juice and rind without boiling. Lemon juice and rind are added off the boil and stirred gently, because prolonged boiling dulls the fresh aroma of citrus oils and can make the syrup taste cooked and bitter.
“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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