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Dessert

Flavoured Syrup

A sweet lemon‑cinnamon syrup made with cream, sugar, and flour, served with macaroons and candied citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Flavoured Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the cream, sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, flour, and lemon juice.

  2. Stir the mixture over low heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture thickens.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool.

  4. Strain the syrup through a muslin strainer to remove solids.

Serve

  1. Serve the syrup with macaroons and candied citron.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rich cream
Provides richness and body, giving the syrup a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as it dissolves over heat.
Flour
Thickens the mixture so it becomes a syrup rather than thin liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness.
Macaroons
Provide a crisp, chewy contrast when served alongside the syrup.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat. Flour-thickened cream scorches or lumps easily if overheated, so gentle low heat with steady stirring lets the sugar dissolve and the mixture thicken evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, cinnamon, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, cinnamon, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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