Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Soda Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve 4 pounds of white sugar in 2 pints of hot water.
Dissolve ¼ pound of tartaric acid in 1 pint of cold water and boil for a few minutes.
Finish and serve
Let the mixture cool, then add the beaten egg whites and bottle for use.
When ready to serve, put about 3 teaspoons of the mixture in a glass, fill partway with cold water, add a little baking soda, stir, and drink quickly while foaming.
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 + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 the bulk of the sweet syrup base.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and reacts with baking soda to fizz.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into the cooled mixture to add foam and body to the drink.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the mixture to release carbon dioxide, producing fizz and foam.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda at serving time. Baking soda and tartaric acid react immediately to release carbon dioxide, so the mixture must be added to the glass and drunk quickly before the bubbles escape and the foam collapses.
“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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