Why it works: Maple syrup and corn work together. They rank in the top 25% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 119 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓
Maple Sauce for Ice Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a saucepan, combine maple syrup and a little water if needed.
Boil the mixture over medium heat.
In a small bowl, mix corn starch with a little cold water to create a slurry.
Add the corn starch mixture to the boiling syrup, stirring constantly until thickened.
Serve
Serve hot over ice cream.
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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Maple syrup + corntop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together119 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Maple syrup
- Provides the main sweetness and flavor of the sauce.
- Corn starch
- Thickens the syrup into a smooth sauce when heated.
The step that matters
Adding the corn starch slurry to the boiling syrup. Cornstarch must be fully dispersed in cold water first, then stirred constantly into boiling liquid. Starch granules that are added dry or unstirred clump, and the sauce thickens unevenly.
“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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