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Dessert

Lemon Candy

A hard candy made from sugar, water, vinegar, butter, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Lemon Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Boil the sugar, water, and vinegar together.

  2. Add the butter when nearly done, and the lemon essence after removing from heat.

  3. Test a small amount in a cup of water to check if it hardens.

Pour and cut

  1. Pour onto a well-greased platter.

  2. When nearly cool, cut into squares.

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 + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vinegar + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,334 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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 body of the candy and sets firm as the syrup cools.
Vinegar
Adds acidity and helps keep the sugar from crystallising into a grainy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer bite and a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Lemon essence
Provides the lemon aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Test the candy in cold water. Sugar syrup changes character as its temperature and concentration rise, so the cold-water test shows whether it has reached the hard stage. Pulling it off heat too early leaves a sticky candy that will not set properly.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, 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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