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 ↓
White Sugar Syrup for Hot Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Combine sugar and boiling water in a pot.
Add cream of tartar and bring to a boil.
Boil for 20 minutes to 30 minutes.
Test a small portion in a cup; if too thin, boil longer; if too thick, add water.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Granulated sugar
- Forms the bulk of the syrup and provides all of its sweetness.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing, so the syrup stays smooth.
The step that matters
Testing the consistency. Sugar syrup thickens as water evaporates during boiling, so the cook must check a small cooled sample. Adding water corrects an overly thick batch, while extra boiling thickens a thin one.
“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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