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 ↓
Lemonade, Bottled
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in water and boil over low heat.
Once cooled, add acetic acid, tartaric acid, and essence of lemon.
Bottle and seal
Pour one-sixth of the mixture into each bottle filled with water.
Add carbonate of soda to each bottle and cork 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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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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness that balances the sourness of the acids.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity and reacts with the carbonate to release carbon dioxide.
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acids to release carbon dioxide gas, giving the drink its fizz.
- Acetic acid
- Adds additional sourness to the sharp, tart flavor.
- Essence of lemon
- Supplies the lemon aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Cork each bottle immediately after adding the carbonate of soda. The acids and carbonate react at once, releasing carbon dioxide gas. If the bottle stays open, the gas escapes and the lemonade goes flat. Sealing traps the gas in the liquid, which is what carbonates the drink.
“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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