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 ↓
Portable Effervescing Lemonade
12 tumblersIngredients
Directions
Prepare the powders
Rub together the carbonate of soda, powdered sugar, and essence of lemon.
Divide the mixture into 12 parts and wrap each in blue paper.
Wrap the tartaric acid in 12 white papers.
Serve
To use, dissolve one blue paper powder in a tumbler of cold spring water.
Add the tartaric acid from the white paper and stir briskly to create effervescence.
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.
-
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
- Carbonate of soda
- Reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, creating the fizz.
- Tartaric acid
- Acid that reacts with the carbonate of soda to produce bubbles and a sour tang.
- Powdered refined sugar
- Sweetens the drink and balances the sourness of the acid.
The step that matters
Keep the blue and white powders separate until serving. If the alkali and acid mix before use, they react early and the lemonade loses its effervescence. Dissolving the alkaline powder first and adding the acid last keeps the fizz lively.
“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.
More effervescent lemonade recipes
You might also like
Lemon Whey33 recipes
Lemon Wine31 recipes
Lemon Squash10 recipes
Lemon Essence8 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.