Orange Lemonade
This juice is a favorite at our place. I'll often double the batch and send a jar next door to my mother-in-law! I was looking for a way to sweeten lemonade without using more sugar when I came up with the recipe.
This juice is a favorite at our place. I'll often double the batch and send a jar next door to my mother-in-law! I was looking for a way to sweeten lemonade without using more sugar when I came up with the recipe.
- Carbohydrate 0.413365110365537 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.00506309581935382 g
- Fiber 0.214229393326793 g
- Protein 0.0303154790967691 g
- Saturated Fat 0.000638202456515996 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (7g)
- Sodium 0.28859524972041 mg
- Sugar 0.199135717038744 g
- Trans Fat 0.00264386142305322 g
- Calories 1 calories
Step-by-step
- In a large saucepan, combine sugar and water.
- Cook over medium heat until sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.
- Cool.
- Add juices and peel to cooled sugar syrup.
- Cover and let stand at room temperature 1 hour.
- Strain syrup; cover and refrigerate.
- To serve, fill glasses or pitcher with equal amounts of fruit syrup and water.
- Add ice and serve.
Bright yellow liquid hits the glass with a sharp, aromatic burst of volatile citrus oils, balancing high acidity against concentrated sweetness. Bottled juices undergo pasteurization temperatures exceeding 185 degrees Fahrenheit, destroying delicate volatile compounds responsible for authentic fruit aroma. Freshly squeezed lemon and orange juices retain compounds like limonene and citral, which degrade rapidly upon exposure to light and oxygen.
Extracting these essential oils efficiently requires steeping grated lemon and orange peel directly within a cooked sugar syrup. Granulated sucrose dissolved in water at a 1:1.4 ratio creates a dense medium that extracts lipophilic oils from the zested peel during a mandatory one-hour room-temperature rest. Straining this mixture through a fine-mesh sieve removes solid pith and zest particles, yielding a clear concentrate that mixes cleanly with diluting water.
Dissolving sugar completely over medium heat requires continuous stirring until the liquid turns transparent and no grit remains on the bottom of the saucepan. Cooling this syrup before adding fresh juice prevents thermal degradation of the vitamin C content and stops the volatile aromatics from evaporating prematurely. Storing the strained syrup in a sealed glass container within the refrigerator maintains quality for up to five days.
Substitutions alter the flavor profile significantly if bottled alternatives replace fresh citrus. Valencia oranges provide higher juice yields and a more neutral acid balance than navel varieties, while Eureka lemons deliver consistent acidity year-round.
