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Clarification of Sugar

A method to clarify sugar by boiling and skimming.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

Clarification of Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Whisk the egg white in a quart of water.

Clarify the sugar

  1. Boil the sugar three times.

  2. Check the boiling by adding a little water each time.

  3. Remove from heat and let it stand briefly.

  4. Skim off the foam.

  5. Return to heat with a little more water.

  6. Check the boiling again.

  7. Skim once more.

  8. Strain through a fine sieve.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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 white
As it heats, the egg white coagulates and traps impurities, which then rise as foam to be skimmed off.
Sugar
Forms the syrup itself, so its purity and clarity determine the final result.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam. The foam holds the coagulated egg white and impurities. Removing it completely after the egg white has set gives a clear syrup, while skimming too early or leaving foam behind leaves the syrup cloudy.

“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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