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Lemon Syrup

A sweet lemon syrup made by boiling sugar, water, lemon juice, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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

Prepare

  1. Soften the lemons by rolling them under your hand.

  2. Squeeze out all the juice.

  3. Put the sugar into a porcelain-lined kettle.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix them with the water and add to the sugar.

  5. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Make the syrup

  1. Place kettle over the fire.

  2. Boil, skimming off any scum that rises to the surface.

  3. Add lemon juice to the boiling syrup.

  4. Cover.

  5. Boil gently for 10 minutes.

  6. Remove from heat.

  7. Let cool before filling bottles that have been rinsed with alcohol.

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. Lemon + sugartop 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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar 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

Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the syrup's flavor.
Egg whites
Foam as they are beaten, and rising solids carry scum to the surface for skimming.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and, when dissolved and boiled, thickens it into a syrup.

The step that matters

Skimming the boiling syrup. Egg white bound to impurities rises as scum during boiling; removing it as it forms keeps the syrup clear and free of off-flavors.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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