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 ↓
Syrup for Water Ices
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan.
Boil for about 20 minutes until the syrup can be drawn into threads between your thumb and finger.
Beat the egg whites and add them to the syrup to clarify.
Store
Bottle the syrup for future use.
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 + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Loaf sugar
- Dissolves in the water to form the syrup, providing sweetness and body.
- Egg whites
- Coagulate when heated and trap impurities, helping clarify the syrup.
The step that matters
Boiling to the thread stage. Stop when the syrup forms threads between your fingers. Boiling too briefly leaves it thin and watery, while boiling too long over-concentrates the sugar, which can make it crystallize as it cools.
“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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