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 Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar and tartaric acid in hot water.
Let the mixture cool.
Add the beaten egg whites and stir well.
Add any desired flavoring to the syrup.
Bottle the syrup for use.
Serve
To serve, mix 2 large spoons of syrup in a glass of cold water.
Stir in ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
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 syrup.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds acidity that gives the drink its tang and reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to fizz.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into the syrup to add foam and body to the mixture.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acid when stirred into the drink, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles.
The step that matters
Stir in the bicarbonate of soda at serving time. Bicarbonate of soda and tartaric acid react immediately to release carbon dioxide. Adding it when serving, rather than earlier, keeps the fizz lively instead of letting the gas escape before the drink is consumed.
“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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