Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Simple Syrup for Sweetening Ices
Ingredients
Directions
Heat the sugar and water in a large pot until it boils, stirring often.
Strain the mixture and store it in a cool place.
Add cream of tartar to prevent crystallization on the surface.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Dissolves into the water to form the sweet, syrupy body of the syrup.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acid that helps keep sugar from forming crystals on the surface.
The step that matters
Heating until the sugar fully dissolves. Sugar left undissolved on the pot's sides or in the liquid can seed crystals later. Stirring while it heats helps all the sugar dissolve before the syrup boils.
“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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