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Dessert

Of Clarifying Sugar

A method to clarify sugar by boiling and removing impurities.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Of Clarifying Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. In a medium-sized pan, beat the egg white until frothy.

  2. Add the filtered water and sugar, stirring to combine.

Clarify the sugar

  1. Place the pan over moderate heat until it begins to boil.

  2. Move the pan to the corner of the stove to allow the sugar to release its scum.

  3. Add the cold water.

  4. After simmering for 10 minutes, remove the scum.

  5. Gradually add more filtered water.

  6. When the froth is light and whitish, the sugar is clarified.

Strain

  1. Strain through a wet napkin or silk sieve.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Sugar
Forms the sweet syrup that is clarified, making up most of the liquid's body.
Egg white
Its proteins set when heated, trapping impurities in a froth that can be skimmed away.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity, which slightly breaks down sucrose and helps discourage crystallisation.

The step that matters

Removing the scum after simmering. Heating sets the egg white proteins, which trap impurities into the froth. Skimming too early or too late, or stirring the froth back in, leaves cloudiness in the syrup.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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