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Sugar Coloring

A sugar-based coloring used to add color and flavor to soups and gravies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sugar Coloring

Ingredients

Directions

Make the colorant

  1. Melt the sugar in a pan and let it burn until black, stirring constantly.

  2. Once it reaches a pulp, add a little coarse sea salt, black pepper, and allspice.

  3. Pour the mixture into hot water and stir well.

  4. Bring to a boil, then cool and bottle for use.

Use

  1. Add a small amount to soup or gravy for color and flavor.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + allspicetop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,938 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

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

Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Sugar
Burns to a dark, bitter-edged caramel that gives the colour and some of the flavour.
Black pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic bite that balances the sweet, burnt sugar.
Allspice
Contributes warm, aromatic notes that round out the burnt sugar flavour.

The step that matters

Burning the sugar until black. Sugar darkens through caramelization and then turns bitter and acrid once it burns too far. Stirring constantly keeps it from scorching unevenly, so the colour is rich and the flavour does not turn harsh.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicethe original
  4. Gingerfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, pepper. 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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