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 ↓
Barley Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sugar
Boil the clarified sugar in a pan with a spout over a clear fire until it reaches the crackled or caramel stage.
Test the sugar by wetting the end of a stick, dipping it into the sugar, then quickly placing it in cold water for half a minute; if it snaps, it is done, otherwise continue boiling.
Add the lemon juice and essence of lemon, then let the mixture boil again.
Test again for the snap; if it snaps, the sugar is ready.
While boiling, lightly oil a smooth marble slab with sweet oil.
Shape and store
Pour the boiled sugar onto the slab in a sheet and cut it into strips about 6 inches long and 1 inch wide with scissors.
When cool, twist the strips and place them on tin plates to cool completely.
Store the cooled strips in jars or canisters to keep them from becoming sticky.
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
- Clarified sugar
- Forms the glassy, brittle candy structure as it cooks to the crackled or caramel stage.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens flavour and helps keep the sugar from recrystallising.
The step that matters
Testing for the snap. Sugar must reach the hard-crack stage to set brittle rather than chewy. Under-boiled sugar stays soft and sticky, while over-boiled sugar may darken and taste bitter. The cold-water test shows when the sugar has reached the right concentration.
“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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