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Dessert

Karo Sea Foam

A candy made from sugar, corn syrup, water, and egg whites, cooked into a soft ball and folded into beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Karo Sea Foam

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and water.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a soft ball when tested in cold water.

Whip and set

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Slowly pour the hot syrup into the beaten egg whites while continuing to beat.

  3. Once fully combined and stiff, pour the mixture into a buttered pan.

  4. Allow to cool, then mark into squares.

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. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  4. Sugar + corntop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

  5. Corn + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Granulated sugar
Provides the sweetness and forms the crystal-free syrup base that sets the candy.
Dark karo corn syrup
Inhibits sugar crystallization, keeping the candy smooth and tender rather than grainy.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that traps air, giving the candy its light, airy structure.

The step that matters

Boiling the syrup to soft ball stage. The syrup must reach the correct temperature for the soft ball stage. Too little cooking leaves the candy soft and sticky, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle once cooled.

“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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