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
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar in water to make a syrup.
Add the lemon rind and let it stand for 1 hour.
Remove the rind and add the strained lemon juice.
Finish and serve
Stir in the Apollinaris water and place a block of ice in the center of the bowl.
Peel and slice the lemon, adding the slices to the lemonade.
Optionally, add claret or fine cordials.
Serve with a piece of lemon in each glass.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves into the water to form a sweet syrup that balances the lemon's acidity.
- Lemon rind
- Its oils flavour the syrup with aroma while it stands for an hour.
- Lemon juice
- Provides the tart, acidic flavour that defines the lemonade.
- Apollinaris water
- Adds carbonation, giving the drink a lively, sparkling texture.
The step that matters
Steeping the lemon rind. Letting the rind stand in the sugar syrup draws out its fragrant oils. Leaving it too long or skipping the removal step can make the drink bitter, since the white pith and oils extract harshly over time.
“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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