Why it works: Sugar and spread match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 260 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Sugar Vinegar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the liquid
Boil 1 gallon of water with 2 pounds of coarse sugar and skim thoroughly.
Add 1 quart of cold water to the hot mixture.
When cool, add a toast spread with yeast and stir for 9 days.
Ferment and bottle
Transfer to a barrel and place it in a sunny spot, covering the bung‑hole with a piece of slate.
Make it in March; it will be ready in 6 months.
When sufficiently sour, bottle it or use it directly from the cask with a wooden spigot.
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.
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Sugar + spreadtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together260 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Coarse sugar
- Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into the acids and flavour of the vinegar.
- Yeast
- Starts the fermentation that converts the sweet liquid into sour vinegar.
The step that matters
Stirring with the yeast toast for 9 days. The mixture must be cool before the yeast is added, since heat can kill yeast. Stirring keeps air in contact with the liquid, which the acetic acid bacteria need to turn the fermented liquid sour.
“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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