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Drink

Bottled Soda-water

A homemade carbonated beverage made with water, sugar, tartaric acid, lemon juice, eggs, and flavoring, then bottled and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Bottled Soda-water

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup base

  1. Combine water, sugar, tartaric acid, essence, juice of lemons, and beaten eggs in a large container.

  2. Add Cream Nectar and mix well.

  3. Strain the mixture into bottles and shake daily for one week.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix ½ cup cream, ½ cup water, and 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda.

  2. Stir and drink immediately.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Tartaric acid
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the drink its tang and reacts with bicarbonate to fizz.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, creating the fizz when served.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to balance the acidity.
Eggs
Add protein that helps bind and foam the mixture.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sharpness of the drink.

The step that matters

Mixing the bicarbonate of soda at serving. Bicarbonate and acid react immediately to release carbon dioxide, so the drink must be stirred and drunk right away before the fizz fades.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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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