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Drink

To Make Plain Syrup

A clear sugar syrup made by dissolving refined sugar in water, boiled, cooled, and flavored with acid, essence, or other additives.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

To Make Plain Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a pot, combine 6 lbs of refined sugar with 2 pints of water.

  2. Gently heat until the sugar is dissolved, then bring to a boil for 1 minute.

  3. Remove from heat and skim off any scum.

  4. Boil again for another minute and remove any further scum.

  5. Add enough cold water to make 1 gallon (about 3 pints).

Flavor and finish

  1. While warm, stir in citric or tartaric acid until dissolved.

  2. If using, add coloring mixed with warm water.

  3. Once cooled to lukewarm, gradually stir in essence, French cream, preservative, and any other ingredients.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 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

Refined sugar
Provides sweetness and body, and dissolves into the water to form the syrup.
Citric or tartaric acid
Adds acidity that brightens flavor and helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing.

The step that matters

Skimming the scum after each boil. Scum is impurities and foam rising from the sugar solution. Removing it while the syrup is hot keeps the finished syrup clear and clean-tasting.

“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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