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Dessert

Sea Foam

Sea Foam is a candy made from sugar, Karo syrup, water, egg whites, and nut meats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sea Foam

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Boil sugar, Karo syrup, and water until a hard ball forms in water.

Foam and set

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Slowly pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites while beating constantly.

  3. Mold the mixture in a deep cake pan for slicing.

Serve

  1. Turn it onto a platter and cut into pieces.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + meattop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Syrup + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes
  5. Sugar + meattop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 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

Sugar
Forms the sweet syrup base that hardens into the candy's structure as it cools.
Karo syrup
Helps keep the sugar from crystallizing, so the candy stays smooth.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the candy its light, airy texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup into the beaten whites. The syrup must be at the hard ball stage and poured slowly while beating constantly. Hot syrup cooks the egg white proteins and sets the foam around trapped air. Pouring too fast or stopping to beat can deflate the foam and leave the candy dense or grainy.

“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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