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 ↓
Sugar, to Clarify
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve the sugar in the water in a large saucepan over low heat.
Do not let the mixture become very hot.
Beat the egg whites until frothy and add them to the sugar mixture.
Continue to heat gently, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved.
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
- Loaf sugar
- Provides sweetness and the body of the syrup once dissolved in the water.
- Egg whites
- Their proteins coagulate with heat and trap impurities, which clarifies the syrup.
The step that matters
Keeping the mixture from getting very hot. Heating too fast or too hot can cause the egg whites to set prematurely and scramble, so they cannot gather impurities and clarify the syrup. Gentle heat lets the whites rise gradually and capture particles for skimming.
“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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