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
Boil the water and sugar together for 10 minutes.
Pour the hot mixture over the citric acid and essence of lemon in a jug.
Stir until the acid is dissolved.
Bottle and serve
Let it cool, then bottle and cork for use.
Mix 1 tablespoon or more with a tumbler of water, soda, or seltzer to serve.
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
- Provides the sweetness and body of the syrup.
- Citric acid
- Adds the sharp, sour bite that balances the sweetness.
- Essence of lemon
- Gives the syrup its lemon aroma and flavor.
The step that matters
Stir until the acid is dissolved. Hot syrup helps citric acid dissolve. Undissolved crystals stay gritty and leave the syrup unevenly sour, so stir until no crystals remain.
“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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