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 ↓
Lemon Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
In a basin, mix the sifted sugar with lemon juice until it forms a thick paste and a light yellow color.
Transfer the mixture to a drop pan.
Cook and drop
Heat the mixture over a clear fire, stirring continuously until hot but not boiling.
Remove from heat for one minute.
Drop the mixture onto a surface.
Allow the mixture to dry, similar to making Peppermint Drops.
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 bulk of the drops and sets into a hard, crisp candy as it cools and dries.
- Lemon juice
- Moistens the sugar into a paste and adds the sharp citrus flavor.
The step that matters
Heating until hot but not boiling. Sugar syrup that is heated too far turns hard and brittle or darkens and caramelizes, while too little heat leaves the mixture soft and unable to set into firm drops.
“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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