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 ↓
Cream Soda an Excellent Drink for Warm Weather
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Dissolve the sugar, cream of tartar, Epsom salts, and tartaric acid in 1 gallon of water.
Heat the mixture until it boils, skimming if necessary.
Allow the syrup to cool, then bottle it and store in a cool place.
Serve
To serve, mix 2-3 tablespoons of syrup in a tumbler filled two-thirds with water.
Add ⅛ teaspoon of super-carbonate of soda and stir briskly to create effervescence.
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 + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,964 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Loaf sugar
- Provides the sweetness and body of the syrup.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity and helps keep the sugar from crystallising in the syrup.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharpness and reacts with the soda to release carbon dioxide.
- Super-carbonate of soda
- Releases carbon dioxide bubbles when it meets the acid, giving the drink its fizz.
The step that matters
Stir the soda in briskly. The soda and acid react immediately to release carbon dioxide. Stirring briskly disperses the gas through the drink, while a slow stir lets much of the fizz escape before it reaches the glass.
“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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