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Simple Syrup

A sweet syrup made by dissolving sugar in water with egg whites, then simmering and straining.

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

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 ↓

Simple Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar, egg whites, and water in a pan.

  2. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2-3 minutes.

  4. Remove from heat, skim off any foam, and strain through a flannel bag.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + eggtop 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup, dissolving fully in the water.
Egg whites
Coagulate when heated, trapping impurities so they can be skimmed off and strained out.

The step that matters

Skim off the foam before straining. Egg whites rise with impurities from the sugar as the syrup heats. Removing the coagulated foam while hot leaves a clear syrup rather than a cloudy one.

“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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