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, Effervescing
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Mix tartaric acid, bicarbonate of soda, and powdered sugar together and keep dry.
Make the drink
For a drink, use 1 teaspoon of the mixture with a little essence of lemon in half a tumbler of water.
Alternatively, add 2 teaspoons of the mixture to a soda-water bottle and fill with water, corking immediately.
Mix essence of lemon with water before pouring it over the mixture.
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 sour acid that reacts with bicarbonate to release fizz and gives a tart taste.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acid in water to release carbon dioxide, creating the effervescence.
- Powdered lump sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the tartness and dissolves quickly in the drink.
The step that matters
Keep the mixture dry. Tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda react as soon as moisture is present, so a damp mixture loses its fizz before it is used. Keeping the powder dry until the moment of mixing preserves the gas-releasing reaction.
“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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