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Drink

Capillaire

A syrup made from sugar, eggs, water, and orange flower water, boiled twice and strained.

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

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the syrup

  1. Beat the eggs well.

  2. Combine loaf sugar, coarse sugar, and beaten eggs in a pot with water.

  3. Boil the mixture twice, skimming off any foam.

Finish and bottle

  1. Add orange flower water and strain through a jelly bag.

  2. Bottle the syrup.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix a spoonful or two of syrup in a tumbler of warm or cold water.

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

Loaf sugar
Provides the bulk of the sweetness and body of the syrup.
Coarse sugar
Adds further sweetness and dissolves into the syrup to thicken it.
Eggs
Their proteins coagulate when boiled, trapping impurities so skimming removes them and leaves the syrup clear.
Orange flower water
Contributes a floral aroma that flavours the syrup.

The step that matters

Skimming the foam while boiling. Egg whites and impurities rise to the surface as foam during boiling. Removing them thoroughly keeps the syrup clear and stops off-flavours from remaining in the finished syrup.

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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