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Drink

Flax-seed Lemonade

A cold beverage made by boiling flax seed in water, straining, and sweetening with powdered sugar, gum arabic, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Flax-seed Lemonade

Ingredients

Directions

Make the flaxseed base

  1. Combine flax seed and cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Boil until the liquid becomes sticky.

Finish the lemonade

  1. Strain the hot mixture over the powdered sugar and gum arabic.

  2. Stir until fully dissolved.

  3. Squeeze in the juice of one lemon.

  4. Mix well.

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).

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

Flax seed
Boiling releases a sticky mucilage that thickens the liquid and gives it body.
Powdered gum arabic
Adds body and helps keep the drink smooth and evenly blended.
Powdered sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves quickly into the warm liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Boiling until sticky. Flax seed releases its thickening mucilage during boiling. Stop too early and the drink stays thin; boil too long and it can become overly thick and gummy.

“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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