Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓
To Clarify Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and boil
In a pot, combine the sugar, water, and beaten egg white.
Stir until the sugar dissolves, then bring to a boil.
When scum rises, add another ½ cup of cold water for each pound of sugar.
Continue boiling, moving the pot forward from the stove to remove all scum.
Skim and strain
Once settled, skim off the scum with a sugar skimmer and strain through a hair sieve.
Return the syrup to the pot and boil and skim again.
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 + eggtop 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
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup itself, providing sweetness and body once impurities are removed.
- Beaten egg white
- Coagulates when heated, trapping impurities so they rise as scum that can be skimmed off.
The step that matters
Removing all the scum. Scum left in the syrup stays suspended and clouds the sugar. Moving the pot off the heat lets impurities settle, so skimming and straining afterward can remove them cleanly.
“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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