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Nectar Syrup

A sweet syrup made by combining vanilla, rose, lemon, bitter almond extracts with various fruit syrups and sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Nectar Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 4 oz each of vanilla, rose, lemon, and bitter almond extracts with 1 gallon of syrup.

  2. If desired, tint the syrup red with cochineal solution.

  3. Add 8 drops of bitter almond essence and 6 fl oz of orange flower water.

  4. Mix in 10 fl oz of pineapple syrup and 22 fl oz of raspberry syrup.

Add the fruit syrups and finish

  1. In a separate bowl, combine 5 fl oz of pineapple syrup, 2 fl oz of strawberry syrup, and 2 fl oz of raspberry syrup.

  2. Add ½ oz of citric acid and 8 fl oz of sherry wine to the mixture.

  3. Use pure fruit juices and the best sherry wine for optimal flavor.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Vanilla + pineappletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together911 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together950 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  4. Vanilla + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vanilla extract
Adds the main aromatic flavour that defines the syrup.
Citric acid
Adds sourness that balances the sweetness of the syrups.
Sherry wine
Adds depth and a fermented, aromatic note to the syrup.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vanilla, rose, almond, syrup, orange, pineapple, raspberry):

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, rose, almond, syrup, orange, pineapple, raspberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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