Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Ginger Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the ginger liquor
Bruise and slice the ginger.
Put the ginger and sugar into a pan with the water.
Boil the mixture and skim off any foam.
Strain the liquid into a clean vessel.
Ferment
Add the cream of tartar to the vessel.
When nearly cold, mix in the yeast.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lump sugar
- Provides sweetness and the sugar that the yeast ferments into carbon dioxide and alcohol.
- Brown ginger
- Supplies the spicy aroma and flavour that define the drink.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity, which brightens the flavour and helps keep the liquid stable.
- German yeast
- Ferments the sugar, producing carbon dioxide that carbonates the drink.
The step that matters
When nearly cold, mix in the yeast.. Yeast is killed by high heat, so adding it to liquid that is still hot can stop fermentation. Cooling the liquid to near body temperature lets the yeast stay alive and start working.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Gingerthe original
- Peppermintfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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