Why it works: Lemon and saffron match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 538 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓
Lemon Icing
Ingredients
Directions
Clean the lemon with a damp cloth.
Roll the lemon on a plate until the oil begins to exude.
Rub the lemon over sugar in each hand until the flavor is extracted, changing the sugar as needed.
If desired, add a little tincture of saffron for color.
Mix the extracted flavor with more sugar and the lemon juice.
Use the icing immediately.
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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Lemon + saffrontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together538 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + saffrontop 30% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together650 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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
Swap the saffron
The recipe marks saffron as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, sugar):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerfits better
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Saffronthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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