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 ↓
Caramel Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar and water together quickly over a clear fire, skimming carefully as soon as it boils.
Keep boiling until the sugar is brittle when a little is dropped into cold water.
Squeeze in a little lemon juice and let it remain on the fire for an instant longer.
Set the pan into another pan of cold water; the caramel is ready for use.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Forms the caramel itself, browning and hardening as it is boiled down.
- Spring water
- Dissolves the sugar so it can boil evenly before it caramelises.
- Lemon juice
- Adds a little acidity that helps keep the cooked sugar from turning grainy.
The step that matters
Judging when the sugar is brittle. Sugar keeps darkening and hardening while it boils, so stopping too early leaves it soft and stopping too late can burn it. The cold-water test checks the sugar's stage, since its temperature rises as the water boils off.
“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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