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Lemon Syrup

A sweet lemon syrup made by dissolving sugar and citric acid in water, then adding lemon essence and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar in 2 pints of boiling water.

  2. Dissolve the citric acid in ½ pint of boiling water.

  3. Combine the two mixtures and let it stand until completely cool.

  4. Add the lemon essence and stir well.

  5. Strain through a fine strainer and bottle it.

Use

  1. Use about 1 tablespoon of syrup for each tumbler of water.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
Citric acid
Adds sharp acidity that gives the syrup its lemon-like tang.
Concentrated soluble essence of lemon
Supplies the lemon aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Let the syrup cool completely before adding the lemon essence. Lemon essence contains volatile aromatic compounds that heat can drive off, so adding it only after the sugar and acid mixture has cooled helps keep the lemon flavour strong.

“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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