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Dessert

Strawberky Syrup

A sweet syrup made from strawberry juice, sugar, gelatin, and citric acid, colored with carmine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Gelatin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,778 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Strawberky Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve gelatin in 3 quarts of water.

  2. Add 1 quart of pure strawberry juice and a small amount of carmine for color.

  3. Stir in 12½ pounds of sugar until dissolved.

  4. Remove from heat and skim off any scum.

  5. Add ½ ounce of dissolved citric acid.

Bottle

  1. Strain into a jug and cork well 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. Gelatin + sugartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Gelatin + strawberrytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together164 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Strawberry + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,060 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pure strawberry juice
Supplies the main strawberry flavour and aroma of the syrup.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and helps preserve the syrup by binding its water.
Gelatin
Adds a slightly fuller body and mouthfeel to the thin fruit liquid.
Citric acid
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the strawberry flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the sugar until fully dissolved. Undissolved sugar can settle or form crystals as the syrup cools, leaving a grainy texture and an uneven sweetness throughout the batch.

Swap the strawberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against gelatin, 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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