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 ↓
Jam Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Boil sugar and water together for five minutes.
Add jam and lemon juice, then simmer for two to three minutes.
Strain the mixture, then thicken with cornflour mixed with a little cold 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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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
- Jam
- Provides the main fruit flavour and sweetness in the sauce.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the jam and lemon.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances sweetness.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with liquid.
The step that matters
Thicken with cornflour mixed in cold water. Cornflour must be mixed smoothly with cold water before adding it, because dry starch dropped into hot liquid clumps. The starch thickens only once the sauce is heated again, so it needs to be stirred in evenly.
“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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