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Cordial, Cinnamon

A sweet cinnamon cordial made with water, sugar, capsicum tincture, cassia essence, and caramel for color.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Capsicum and cassia work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Cordial, Cinnamon

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine soft water and crystal sugar in a large pot.

  2. Stir until sugar fully dissolved.

  3. Add tincture of capsicum and essence of cassia, then mix well to combine all ingredients.

  4. Add burnt sugar or caramel to achieve desired color.

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. Capsicum + cassiatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Sugar + capsicumtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,560 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + cassiatop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together211 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Soft water
Forms the liquid base that dissolves the sugar into a syrup.
Crystal sugar
Provides sweetness and body to the syrup.
Essence of cassia
Supplies the cinnamon-like aroma that defines the cordial.
Burnt sugar or caramel
Adds amber colour and a slightly toasted, caramel note.

The step that matters

Stir until the sugar fully dissolves. Undissolved sugar crystals leave a grainy texture and can settle or recrystallize later, so the syrup should look completely clear before the flavourings go in.

Swap the cassia

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Corianderfits better
  4. Cassiathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, capsicum. 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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