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Dessert

Lemon Drops

Hard lemon candy made from lemon zest, sugar, egg whites, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Lemon Drops

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the zest

  1. Wash and dry the lemons.

  2. Rub the lemons on sugar and scrape the sugar onto a sheet of paper until all the yellow zest is removed.

Make the mixture

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites with a wooden spoon, gradually adding the lemon zest, sugar, and enough powdered sugar until the mixture holds its shape.

  2. Add lemon juice to achieve desired acidity.

Dry and store

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture, about the size of a sixpence, onto sheets of white paper.

  2. Dry the drops in a warm place or near the fire until firm.

  3. Once dry, store them in glasses or boxes in a dry place.

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.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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

Egg whites
Whipped to hold shape, giving the drops their airy, light structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the drops and, with the powdered sugar, helps stiffen the mixture.
Lemon zest
Supplies the aroma and bright lemon flavour of the drops.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and brightens the flavour.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to hold their shape. Egg whites must be beaten until the mixture holds its shape before drops are formed. Under-beaten whites stay runny and spread out, so the drops lose their form and do not dry firm. Sugar added gradually helps stabilise the foam.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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