Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Sugar Boiling
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine the egg white and water in a metal pan and whisk until frothy.
Add the sugar and mix well.
Boil and strain
Place the pan over heat and let it boil gradually.
Once boiling, add a little cold water, repeating until you've used ½ pint.
When thick scum appears on top, remove from heat and strain through a bag.
If the mixture isn't fine, boil again before straining.
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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Egg + sugartop 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
- Sugar
- Provides the sweetness and the body of the syrup.
- Egg white
- Coagulates as it heats and gathers impurities into scum that can be strained out, clarifying the syrup.
The step that matters
Removing the pan when thick scum appears. The egg white coagulates and traps impurities as scum. Removing the pan at that point and straining keeps the syrup clear. Letting it boil too long risks scorching the sugar.
“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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