Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
To Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine ½ pint of water with each pound of sugar in a kettle.
Add 1 egg white for every 5 pounds of sugar and bring to a boil.
When it rises, add ½ teacup of water and let it boil again.
Repeat this boiling process two or three times.
Clarify and finish
Set the kettle aside for 15 minutes, then remove the scum from the top.
Pour off the syrup, wash the kettle, and add the fruit you wish to preserve.
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 + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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 preserves the fruit.
- Egg white
- Binds impurities and rises with them as scum, so they can be skimmed off.
The step that matters
Skimming the scum after the rest. Egg white coagulates and carries impurities to the surface as the syrup boils. Removing the scum after it has settled leaves a clear syrup; skimming while it is still churning would mix impurities back in.
“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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