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Clarified Syrup

A clear, clarified sugar syrup made by boiling sugar and water, removing scum, and optionally adding egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a clean saucepan.

  2. Dissolve the sugar over moderate heat.

  3. If using, add the beaten egg white before the mixture warms.

  4. Stir well until it boils.

  5. Remove any scum that rises.

  6. Keep simmering until clear.

Strain and store

  1. Strain through a clean cloth.

  2. Store in sealed bottles.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Forms the syrup and provides sweetness and body as it dissolves in the water.
Egg white
Binds to impurities and rises as scum during simmering, so it can be skimmed away to clarify the syrup.

The step that matters

Add the egg white before the mixture warms. Egg white proteins coagulate as the liquid heats and trap cloudy particles and scum, which can then be skimmed off. Adding it late leaves the proteins unable to gather impurities evenly, so the syrup stays 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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