Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Ginger Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar and water together for 45 minutes.
Remove from heat and add the essence of ginger, burnt sugar, tartaric acid, and cayenne.
Bottle and serve
Bottle the mixture.
Serve hot with water and additional sugar if desired.
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 + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Provides sweetness and body as the boiled liquid thickens into a syrup.
- Essence of ginger
- Supplies the main ginger aroma and flavour.
- Burnt sugar
- Adds caramel colour and a deeper, toasted flavour.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness.
The step that matters
Adding the flavourings off the heat. Remove the syrup from the heat before adding the essence of ginger. Ginger's aromatic compounds are volatile, so prolonged boiling drives them off and weakens the final flavour.
“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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