Skip to main content
Dessert

Maidenhair Syrup

A syrup made by infusing maidenhair fern in boiling water, sweetened with sugar and egg whites, then boiled to a pearl stage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Maidenhair Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusion

  1. Cut the capillaire into small pieces.

  2. Infuse the capillaire in boiling water, covering the pan, for 2 hours.

  3. Strain the infusion through a cloth.

Make the syrup

  1. Add sugar and beaten egg whites to the strained infusion.

  2. Gently boil until it reaches the 'Pearl' stage.

  3. Strain through a flannel until clear.

  4. Bottle the syrup when cold.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Capillaire (maidenhair fern)
Provides the flavour that gives the syrup its characteristic taste.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup.
Egg whites
Bind to impurities as they heat, so they can be strained out for a clear syrup.

The step that matters

Gently boil until it reaches the 'Pearl' stage. Boiling too hard or too long can overcook the sugar and make the syrup too thick or dark. Gentle heat lets the sugar concentrate evenly while the egg whites coagulate and collect impurities.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes