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 for Puddings or Creams
Ingredients
Directions
Place the sugar and lemon juice in a pan.
Stir over medium heat until it turns a nice brown color.
Use immediately.
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
- Castor sugar
- Melts and caramelizes to give the sauce its sweet, browned flavor and color.
- Lemon juice
- Adds a little acidity that helps keep the sugar from crystallizing while it cooks.
The step that matters
Stirring over medium heat until brown. Sugar can go from amber to burnt within seconds, and burnt sugar tastes bitter. Watching the color closely and removing the pan at the right shade matters more than the exact 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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