Why it works: Sugar and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,932 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Boil the sugar in water for five minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in the strained honey.
Seal if not using immediately.
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 + honeytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,932 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Provides sweetness and body, and dissolves into the water to form the syrup.
- Strained honey
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and keeps the syrup from crystallising as readily as sugar alone.
The step that matters
Stir in the honey off the heat. Honey is added after boiling so its delicate aroma is not driven off and its sugars are not overheated. Boiling honey for long can darken it and change its 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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