Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓
Lemon Frosting
Ingredients
Directions
Make the frosting
Squeeze the juice from the lemons into a bowl.
Gradually add powdered sugar until the mixture is thick enough to spread.
Finish the cake
Pour the frosting over the top of the cake.
Smooth the frosting with a thin-bladed knife dipped in water.
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 + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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
What each ingredient does
- Lemon juice
- Provides the sharp, acidic flavour that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
- Powdered sugar
- Dissolves into the lemon juice to thicken it into a spreadable frosting with sweetness.
The step that matters
Adding the powdered sugar gradually. Adding sugar all at once can make the frosting lumpy or too thin to control. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the mixture reaches a spreadable thickness.
“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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