Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cream Nectar or Cream Soda
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Dissolve tartaric acid in water.
Beat egg whites to a stiff froth.
Mix sugar with egg froth, then dissolve the remaining sugar in the water.
Combine and bottle
Combine all mixtures and add essences.
Bottle the mixture.
Serve
To serve, mix one-fourth glass of soda with an equal amount of ice water and stir in bicarbonate of soda.
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a stiff froth, they trap air and add a light, foamy body to the drink.
- Tartaric acid
- Provides the sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and body in the syrup.
- Bicarbonate of soda
- Reacts with the acid when stirred in at serving, producing fizz.
The step that matters
Stirring in the bicarbonate of soda at serving. Bicarbonate of soda reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, so it should be stirred in just before serving. Adding it earlier lets the fizz escape and leaves the drink flat.
“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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