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Dessert

Lemon Candy

A hard lemon candy made by boiling sugar, water, and tartar, then adding acid and lemon extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Lemon Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. In a kettle, combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar.

  2. Boil until the mixture becomes brittle when dropped in cold water.

  3. Remove from heat and pour into a greased shallow dish.

Flavor and finish

  1. Once cooled enough to handle, add tartaric acid and lemon extract.

  2. Work the mixture until evenly distributed, but do not overmix to maintain transparency.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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

Sugar
Forms the bulk of the candy and sets into a brittle, glassy structure as it cools.
Cream of tartar
Acid that helps prevent sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth and clear.
Tartaric acid
Adds a sharp, sour bite that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Lemon extract
Provides the lemon aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Boil to the brittle stage. Sugar syrup must reach the correct concentration to set hard and brittle when cooled. Undercooked syrup stays sticky, while overcooked syrup can taste bitter or scorch. Testing a drop in cold water shows when the sugar has reached the right point.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, butter. 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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