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Simple Syrups

A clear syrup made by dissolving sugar in water and adding egg whites, then simmering and straining.

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 ↓

Simple Syrups

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 8 pounds of sugar and 2 quarts of water in a large pot, then add the whites of 2 eggs.

  2. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Clarify and strain

  1. Let the mixture simmer for 3 minutes.

  2. Skim off any foam.

  3. Strain the syrup through fine flannel.

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

Fine white sugar
Dissolves into water to form the syrup and provides all of its sweetness.
Eggs
Their whites coagulate when heated, trapping impurities so they rise as foam to be skimmed off.

The step that matters

Simmer gently after adding the egg whites. The egg whites must heat slowly so they coagulate and gather impurities into a foam. Boiling too hard can break up the foam and push cloudiness back into the syrup, so skimming after the simmer matters for a clear result.

“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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