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Dessert

Ginger Syrup

A sweet syrup made by boiling ginger in water, then reducing and mixing with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the ginger root into pieces.

  2. Add the ginger to 2 gallons of water and boil until reduced to 1 gallon.

Make the syrup

  1. Strain the mixture and pour it over 10 pounds of white sugar.

  2. Boil and skim the mixture until no more scum rises.

  3. Remove from heat and let it cool before bottling for use.

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. Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Green ginger root
Supplies the main flavor and aroma of the syrup.
White sugar
Provides sweetness and the body that makes the syrup thick.
Water
Extracts the ginger flavor during boiling and dissolves the sugar.

The step that matters

Boil and skim until no more scum rises. Scum is coagulated protein and impurities that rise to the surface during boiling. Skimming it off keeps the syrup clear and clean-tasting, and stopping only when no more forms ensures the impurities are fully removed before cooling and bottling.

“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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