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Syrup for Preserves

A sugar syrup made with water and egg white used for fruit preserves.

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 ↓

Syrup for Preserves

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar, water, and egg white in a large, white, china-lined kettle.

  2. Stir well and bring to a boil over medium heat.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, ensuring it bubbles and froths.

  4. Remove from heat and let it settle, then skim thoroughly.

  5. If the syrup rises too quickly, add a dash of cold water to control it.

  6. Once skimmed, return to a boil and prepare your fruit.

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

White sugar
Forms the bulk of the syrup and sets its sweetness and body once dissolved and boiled.
Egg white
Coagulates as it heats, trapping impurities so they rise to the surface for skimming.

The step that matters

Boiling until the syrup froths. Egg white must be heated until it bubbles and froths so it can collect impurities. If the syrup rises too fast, a dash of cold water calms it, preventing boil-over.

“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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