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Drink

Cream of Nectar

A sweet syrup made from water, sugar, acetic acid, cream of tartar, wheat flour, flavoring extract, and baking soda, served with cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Cream of Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 2 quarts water and 2 lbs white sugar in a pot.

  2. Add 3 oz acetic acid.

  3. Add 1 oz cream of tartar. Mix well.

  4. Stir in 2 tablespoons wheat flour that has been wet.

  5. Skim the mixture before boiling.

  6. Boil the mixture.

  7. Remove from heat.

  8. Let cool.

Flavor and serve

  1. Add 6 teaspoons flavoring extract.

  2. Fill a half-pint glass halfway with cold water.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of the nectar.

  4. Stir in ½ teaspoon baking soda briskly before drinking.

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Cream + wheattop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
Acetic acid
Adds sharpness and acidity that balances the sweetness.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity and helps keep the sugar syrup from crystallizing.
Wheat flour
Thickens the mixture and adds body to the liquid.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to produce fizz when stirred in.

The step that matters

Stir in ½ teaspoon baking soda briskly before drinking.. Baking soda reacts with the acid in the nectar to release carbon dioxide, so it must be stirred in quickly and drunk right away before the fizz fades.

“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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