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Dessert

Capillaire Syrup

A syrup made from Capillaire, sugar, egg whites, boiling water, and orange-flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Capillaire Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the infusion

  1. Cut the Capillaire into small pieces.

  2. Infuse the pieces in boiling water, covering the pan.

Clarify and cook the syrup

  1. Add the sugar and clarify with the egg whites.

  2. Boil until it reaches a 'Pearl' stage.

  3. Strain the mixture through a strainer.

Finish and bottle

  1. When cool, add orange-flower water and bottle it.

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 + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + orangetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Capillaire
Provides the main herbal flavour that the syrup carries.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and thickens it as it cooks down.
Egg whites
Bind to impurities as they heat, so they can be skimmed or strained out for a clear syrup.

The step that matters

Boil until it reaches a 'Pearl' stage. Sugar concentration determines the syrup's texture and shelf life. Stopping too early leaves it thin and watery, while overcooking makes it too thick once cooled.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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