Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Caramel for Coloring Soups and Gravies
Ingredients
Directions
Melt one cup of sugar with two tablespoonfuls of water in a sauce pan.
Stir until it is a dark brown color.
Add one cup of boiling water and let simmer for fifteen minutes.
Bottle for use when cool.
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. See the original page.
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.
-
Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,147 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Melts and browns into caramel, giving the dish its deep color and sweet, toasty flavor.
- Boiling water
- Dissolves the hot caramel into a pourable liquid that can thicken or season soups and gravies.
The step that matters
Stir until dark brown. Sugar moves quickly from amber to dark brown and then to burnt. Going too far makes the caramel taste bitter, so the color must be watched closely.
“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.
You might also like
White Cake431 recipes
Pound Cake373 recipes
Orange Bundt Cake349 recipes
Spice Cake344 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.