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Drink

Cream Nectar

A fizzy lemon-flavored drink made from sugar, tartaric acid, water, egg whites, and lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine the sugar, tartaric acid, and water in a porcelain kettle.

  2. Heat gently until warm.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and stir for a few minutes without boiling.

Strain and bottle

  1. Once cool, strain the mixture and add the essence of lemon.

  2. Bottle the mixture.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the nectar in a glass with ½ cup of cold water.

  2. Stir in ¼ teaspoon of baking soda.

  3. Drink while effervescing.

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. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Loaf sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity and reacts with baking soda to create fizz.
Egg whites
Coagulate gently when warmed, helping trap impurities so the liquid clears.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, producing effervescence.
Essence of lemon
Adds a bright lemon aroma.

The step that matters

Stirring in the baking soda and drinking at once. Baking soda reacts with tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, which gives the fizz. That gas escapes quickly from a stirred glass, so the drink should be served and drunk right away while still effervescing.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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