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 ↓
Lemonade Powder
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the sugar, tartaric acid, and essence of lemon well.
Dry the mixture thoroughly.
To use, add 1 tablespoon of the powder to a glass of water.
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
- White sugar
- Provides sweetness and bulk, balancing the sourness of the acid.
- Tartaric acid
- Supplies the sour, tart taste that makes the drink taste like lemonade.
- Essence of lemon
- Adds concentrated lemon aroma and flavor to the powder.
The step that matters
Dry the mixture thoroughly.. Leftover moisture can make the powder clump and cake, and it can cause uneven dissolving or spoilage later. Thorough drying keeps the powder free-flowing and dissolving cleanly when added to water.
“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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