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 the sugar
Dissolve the sugar in a pint of water using a water bath by placing the vessel in a saucepan of water over heat.
After a few hours, remove the scum and pour the syrup into a stone jar or bottle.
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.
As soon as it begins to boil and scum rises, remove it from the heat and let it sit for half an hour.
After half an hour, skim off the settled scum.
Return the syrup to the heat and boil for at least 15 minutes, skimming continuously.
Strain the syrup through a flannel bag until clear and store 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 double-refined sugar
- Provides the sweetness and body of the syrup.
- Egg white
- Its proteins coagulate when heated, trapping impurities so they rise as scum to be skimmed off.
The step that matters
Heating without boiling, then skimming. Stirring until the sugar melts without boiling keeps the egg white from setting too early. Boiling only after the scum forms lets the coagulated egg white lift impurities to the surface, where they can be removed; skimming continuously keeps the syrup clear.
“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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