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Drink

Cream Nectar

A sweet, frothy beverage made with sugar, water, egg whites, tartaric acid, lemon flavoring, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a large pot over low heat.

  2. Warm the mixture until nearly boiling.

  3. Beat the egg whites until frothy and add to the pot.

  4. Allow to boil, then strain the mixture immediately.

Finish and serve

  1. Let it cool, then stir in tartaric acid and lemon flavoring.

  2. Serve by mixing a wineglass of the nectar with a tumbler of water, then add baking soda.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

White sugar
Provides the sweetness and makes up the bulk of the syrup.
Egg whites
Coagulate when boiled and trap impurities, which straining then removes to clarify the syrup.
Tartaric acid
Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the syrup.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid when added at serving, releasing carbon dioxide for fizz.

The step that matters

Allow to boil, then strain the mixture immediately. Boiling sets the frothy egg whites so they trap impurities. Straining while the syrup is still hot removes them before it cools, which keeps the nectar clear.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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