Name: Powders, Lemonade
Ingredients: 4 pounds white sugar, powdered; 1.5 ounces citric or tartaric acid; ¼ ounce essence of lemon

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 ↓

Powders, Lemonade

Ingredients

4 pounds white sugar, powdered
1.5 ounces citric or tartaric acid
¼ ounce essence of lemon

Directions

Mix the sugar, citric acid, and essence of lemon well.
Bottle the mixture for use.
To make a glass of lemonade, take 1 to 2 teaspoons of the powder.

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.

Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked 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

White sugar: Provides sweetness and bulk, dissolving quickly into the drink once the powder is added to water.
Citric or tartaric acid: Supplies the sharp, sour bite that gives lemonade its characteristic tartness.
Essence of lemon: Adds concentrated lemon aroma and flavor to the powder.

“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.