Why it works: Sugar and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,932 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Golden Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine the sugar and water in a pot.
Bring to a boil and let it boil for 2-3 minutes.
Add the strained honey and stir well.
Cool and store
Allow to cool.
Store in a sealed container; it will keep for months.
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 + honeytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,932 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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 syrup's body as it dissolves in water.
- Strained honey
- Adds sweetness and flavor while its invert sugars help keep the syrup from crystallizing.
The step that matters
Boiling the sugar and water. Boiling dissolves the sugar fully and drives off some water, so the syrup sets to the right thickness. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin, and boiling too long can make it darken or turn too thick.
“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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