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 Drops
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a bowl, combine the powdered sugar with enough lemon juice to dissolve it.
Boil the mixture until it reaches a thick syrup consistency and appears brittle when dropped in cold water.
Shape and set
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered plates.
Allow the drops to cool and harden.
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
- Powdered sugar
- Provides the sweetness and, once boiled, forms the hard candy structure.
- Lemon juice
- Dissolves the sugar and adds the sharp, acidic flavour.
The step that matters
Boiling the mixture to the right stage. Sugar must be cooked until the syrup is concentrated enough to harden when cooled. Stopping too early leaves drops that stay sticky or soft, while overcooking can scorch the sugar and give a bitter taste.
“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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