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Drink

Soda Cream

A sweet, carbonated beverage made from sugar syrup, egg whites, and bicarbonate of soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Soda Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve sugar and tartaric acid in hot water.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add beaten egg whites and stir well.

  4. Add any desired flavoring to the syrup.

  5. Bottle the syrup for use.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 2 large spoons of syrup in a glass of cold water.

  2. Stir in ¼ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.

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

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

  3. Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
Tartaric acid
Adds acidity, giving the drink its tart, sharp taste.
Egg whites
Add foam and body to the syrup when beaten into it.
Bicarbonate of soda
Reacts with the acid to release carbon dioxide, making the drink fizz.

The step that matters

Stir in the bicarbonate of soda. Bicarbonate of soda reacts with the tartaric acid to release carbon dioxide, which makes the drink fizz. Adding it too early, before serving, lets the gas escape and the drink goes 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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