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Lemon Syllabicb

A chilled beverage made with lemon rind, sugar, lemon juice, sherry or sweet wine, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Syllabicb

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Grate the rind of 2 lemons over ¾ pound of loaf sugar in pieces.

  2. Pour the juice of 5 lemons, ½ pint of sherry or sweet wine, and 1 pint of cream over the sugar.

  3. Whisk the mixture well for 30 minutes.

Set and serve

  1. Fill glasses with the mixture and let it stand for 12 to 15 hours before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the liquid to balance the sharp lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Supplies the acidity and sharp citrus flavour that defines the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, thick body to the mixture.
Sherry or sweet wine
Adds alcohol and depth of flavour, with a sweet note that complements the lemon.

The step that matters

Whisking the mixture. Whisking well for the full time helps the sugar dissolve and the acidic juice and cream combine evenly into a smooth mixture. Under-whisking can leave gritty sugar and a less uniform texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Pineapplefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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