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To Clarify Honey

A method for clarifying honey by boiling with water, chalk, coal, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 33% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,150 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

To Clarify Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Combine and boil

  1. In a large copper vessel, combine honey, water, chalk, and beaten egg whites.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil for 2 minutes.

  3. Add the pulverized coal and continue boiling for 2 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and let it cool for about 15 minutes.

Strain and wash

  1. Pass the mixture through a well-washed sieve, filtering the first drops twice to remove coal.

  2. Pour boiling water over the remaining coal and materials until they no longer retain sweetness.

Evaporate

  1. Combine the water with the syrup and evaporate over a large fire until only syrup remains.

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. Honey + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Honey
Provides the sweetness and makes up most of the final syrup.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated and trap impurities so they can be strained out.
Pulverized coal
Adsorbs impurities and colour from the liquid, which are then removed by straining.

The step that matters

Straining after cooling. The egg whites must be heated to set and trap impurities, then cooled before straining. Filtering too early can leave cloudy syrup and coal particles, so the first drops are filtered again to keep the result clear.

“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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