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 ↓
Clarified Sugar, or Refined Common Syrup
Ingredients
Directions
Dissolve and rest
Dissolve the sugar in a pint of water using a water bath until fully dissolved.
Let the syrup stand for a few hours.
Remove any scum from the syrup.
Pour the syrup into a stone jar or bottle for use.
Clarify with egg white
Beat the egg white with a few ounces of water until frothy.
Mix the frothy egg white with the same proportions of water and sugar as before.
Heat the mixture over the fire, stirring until the sugar melts, but do not let it boil.
When the mixture begins to boil and scum rises, remove it from the heat.
Let the mixture sit for half an hour.
Skim off the settled scum.
Return the mixture to the heat and boil for at least 15 minutes, skimming constantly.
Strain and store
Strain the syrup through a flannel bag until clear.
Store the clear syrup in bottles.
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
- Powdered sugar
- Provides sweetness and body, and forms the syrup once dissolved in water.
- Egg white
- Coagulates when heated and gathers impurities into scum that can be skimmed off, clearing the syrup.
The step that matters
Boil for at least 15 minutes while skimming constantly. Heating the egg white past boiling makes it coagulate and carry impurities to the surface as scum. Skimming throughout removes that scum, so the syrup stays clear rather than cloudy.
“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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