Why it works: Lemon and sugar 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 ↓
Syrup of Lemons
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the juice
Place the lemon juice in a stone jar and cover the jar tightly.
Set the jar in a pan of boiling water and heat for 15 minutes.
Add the sugar and bottle
Once cooled, gradually add the powdered sugar to the lemon juice.
Shake the jar frequently.
Strain the mixture.
Bottle it when cold.
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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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Lemon and sugar 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
- Lemon juice
- Provides the tart, acidic flavour that forms the base of the syrup.
- Powdered loaf sugar
- Sweetens the juice and dissolves into it to give the syrup its body.
The step that matters
Adding the sugar after cooling. Powdered sugar dissolves most evenly into a cooled liquid. Adding it gradually and shaking the jar often helps prevent clumps and undissolved grains that would leave the syrup grainy or uneven.
“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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