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Drink

Lemonade, or Orangeade

A spiced citrus drink made with lemon and orange juice, sugar, egg whites, and spices, boiled and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Lemonade, or Orangeade

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Lemonade, or Orangeade

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine the spring water, cinnamon, cloves, orange juice, lemon juice, and the zest of both fruits.

  2. Sweeten the mixture with loaf sugar and whisk in the egg whites and yolk.

  3. Place the pot over a brisk fire and bring to a boil.

  4. Once boiling, reduce heat and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Strain the mixture through a jelly bag and allow it to cool.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Clove + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the citrus juices.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated, helping to clarify the liquid so it strains clear.
Lemon juice
Provides the sour, acidic flavor that defines the lemonade.
Orange juice
Adds sweet citrus flavor and acidity to the orangeade base.

The step that matters

Simmering after the boil. Egg whites only clarify the drink if they are heated gently enough to set and trap sediment. Boiling too hard can break up the coagulated whites, leaving the liquid cloudy after straining.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, orange, lemon, sugar, egg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, orange, lemon, sugar, egg. 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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