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 ↓
Syrup of Cream
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Scald the fresh cream gently without boiling.
Add sugar to the cream until it is sweet.
Cool and bottle
Let it cool in a cool place for 2-3 hours.
Transfer the mixture into 1 or 2-ounce bottles.
Cork the bottles tightly.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and body, thickening the syrup as it cools.
- Fresh cream
- Adds richness and fat, giving the syrup a smooth, creamy texture.
The step that matters
Scald the cream without boiling. Boiling cream can scorch it and cause it to separate or develop a cooked flavor. Gentle heat warms the cream evenly so it dissolves the sugar smoothly.
“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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