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 ↓
Portable Lemonade
twelve equal partsIngredients
Directions
Prepare the powder
Powder the tartaric acid and sugar very finely in a marble or Wedgewood mortar.
Mix them together and add the essence of lemon a few drops at a time, stirring after each addition.
Once all the essence is added, mix thoroughly and divide into twelve equal parts.
Package and use
Wrap each part separately in white paper.
To use, dissolve one part in a tumbler of cold water for lemonade.
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
- Tartaric acid
- Provides the sharp, sour taste that makes the drink taste like lemonade.
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness to balance the sourness of the acid.
- Essence of lemon
- Adds the lemon aroma and flavour to the powder.
The step that matters
Adding the essence of lemon. Essence is strongly flavoured and oily, so adding it a few drops at a time while stirring spreads it evenly through the dry powder. Added all at once, it can clump and leave uneven lemon flavour in individual portions.
“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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