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 ↓
How to Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
In a large pot, stir the egg white into the sugar.
Add 5 cups of water for the sugar and stir until the sugar melts over moderate heat.
Once it boils, sprinkle in 4 tablespoons of water.
When it bubbles up again, remove the pot from heat and skim off the scum.
Strain
Strain the syrup through a coarse towel.
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
- Provides sweetness and body; it dissolves in the water to form the syrup.
- Egg white
- As it heats, it coagulates and traps impurities, which rise as scum for skimming.
The step that matters
Skimming the scum at the right moment. The egg white coagulates with impurities into a scum on the surface. Skimming it off before straining keeps the syrup clear. Stirring or heating after this point can break up the scum and cloud the syrup.
“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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