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Drink

Soda Cream

A sweet, fizzy drink made from sugar, tartaric acid, water, egg whites, syrup, bicarbonate of soda, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Soda Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve the sugar and tartaric acid in hot water.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and stir well.

  4. Bottle the syrup for use.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 2 large tablespoons of syrup in a glass of cold water.

  2. Stir in ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.

  3. Add any desired flavoring.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup, and helps preserve it.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity and reacts with bicarbonate of soda to produce fizz.
Egg whites
Whip into the syrup to add foam and a light, creamy texture.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, making the drink fizzy.

The step that matters

Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. Bicarbonate reacts with the tartaric acid as soon as it meets the liquid, releasing carbon dioxide bubbles. Adding it just before serving keeps most of that fizz in the glass rather than letting it escape.

“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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