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To Clarify Sugar

Sugar clarified by dissolving in water, removing scum, and re-precipitating to produce clear, pure sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

To Clarify Sugar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break sugar into large lumps and place in a clean preserving pan.

  2. Measure 3 quarts of water for syrup and 2 pints for candying.

  3. Beat the egg white lightly and mix with the water.

  4. Pour the mixture over the sugar and let it stand until nearly dissolved.

Clarify the syrup

  1. Stir thoroughly and place over gentle heat without disturbing it after scum forms.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes, then remove from heat and skim off the scum.

  3. Return to heat, add a little reserved cold water, and repeat skimming until clear.

  4. Strain through muslin or thin cloth and transfer to a clean pan for further boiling.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + syruptop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,995 recipes

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the syrup base that is clarified and later boiled for candying.
Egg white
Coagulates when heated and gathers impurities into scum that can be skimmed off.

The step that matters

Skimming until clear. Scum must be removed while the syrup is only gently heated and undisturbed; stirring or rough boiling breaks the coagulated egg white apart and remixes impurities, leaving the syrup 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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