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Dessert

Cream Mectar

A sugar-based confection made with water, egg whites, tartaric acid, lemon flavoring, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Mectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a large pot over low heat.

  2. Once warm, add the beaten egg whites.

  3. Bring the mixture to nearly boiling, then let it boil and strain immediately.

Finish and serve

  1. When cooled, stir in the tartaric acid and lemon flavoring.

  2. Add the baking soda before serving.

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

Sugar
Provides the sweetness and the bulk of the syrup.
Egg whites
Help clarify the syrup as they are heated and strained out.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas, giving the drink its fizz.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda before serving. Baking soda reacts with the acid immediately and releases carbon dioxide. If it is added too early, the fizz is lost before the drink is served, so it should be added just before serving.

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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