Name: Syrup of Cream
Ingredients: 1 pint fresh cream; 1¼ pounds powdered sugar

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Syrup of Cream

Ingredients

1 pint fresh cream
1¼ pounds powdered sugar

Directions

Make the syrup

Scald the fresh cream without sugar and let it cool.
Add the powdered sugar until it is sweetened to your taste.
Store the mixture in a cool place for 2–3 hours.

Bottle and store

Pour into 1 or 2-ounce bottles and cork them tightly.
Keep in a cool place; it will last for several weeks.

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.

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.

Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Fresh cream: Provides fat for richness and a smooth, full body.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the cream and dissolves into it quickly, adding sweetness.

“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.