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Fruit Syrups

A sweet syrup made by boiling fruit juice with sugar and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Grape and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,412 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fruit Syrups

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the juice

  1. Heat and strain the fruit to extract the juice.

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine the fruit juice, sugar, and lemon juice.

  2. Bring to a boil and cook for 5-6 minutes, skimming off any foam.

Jar and seal

  1. Pour the syrup into sterilized jars and seal as in canning.

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. Grape + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,412 recipes

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

  2. Currant + grapetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together346 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,270 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Grape + sugartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,490 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Fruit juice
Provides the main flavor and color of the syrup.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and thickens the syrup as it cooks down.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the fruit flavor and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil and skim the syrup. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and concentrates the liquid into a syrup. Skimming off the foam keeps the syrup clear and removes impurities that could spoil it in storage.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against grape, sugar, lemon. 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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