Why it works: Syrup and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,179 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Capillaire Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the syrup until it reaches a blowing stage.
Boil it twice or thrice with the orange-flower water, skimming constantly.
Bottle and seal
Pour the syrup into bottles and cork them the next day.
Cover the corks with pieces of bladder, ensuring the syrup is very fine before sealing.
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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Syrup + orangetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,179 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fine syrup
- Provides the sweet base and body, and its concentration helps preserve the finished syrup.
- Orange-flower water
- Adds a floral aroma that flavours the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil the syrup to the blowing stage. Sugar concentration sets the syrup's texture and how well it keeps. Boiling to the blowing stage drives off enough water to reach that concentration, so stopping early leaves a syrup that may spoil or stay runny.
“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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