Why it works: Ginger and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Candied Ginger
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine grated ginger, 1 pound of powdered sugar, and enough water to dissolve the sugar in a preserving pan.
Stir over low heat until the sugar begins to boil.
Add the remaining pound of powdered sugar and stir until thick.
Shape and dry
Remove from heat and drop in cakes onto earthen dishes.
Place in a warm area to dry until hard and brittle.
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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Ginger + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ginger and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Grated ginger
- Provides the main flavor and the spicy aroma of the candy.
- Powdered loaf sugar
- Forms the sweet candy mass that sets hard as the syrup thickens and dries.
The step that matters
Stirring the sugar until thick. Sugar syrup must be cooked to the right thickness before it is dropped out. If it is too thin, the cakes will not set, and if it goes too far, they harden before shaping.
“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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