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Dessert

Artificial Honey

A sweet syrup made by boiling sugar with water, alum, cream of tartar, and rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Artificial Honey

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Mix sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Skim the mixture carefully while boiling.

Finish the honey

  1. Before removing from heat, add pulverized alum.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in cream of tartar and rose water while cooling.

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).

  2. Sugar + rosetop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,584 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cream + rosetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,086 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides the sweetness and body of the honey.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps keep the sugar from recrystallizing into grainy crystals.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma to the honey.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cream of tartar and rose water while cooling. Sugar syrup that is cooling is supersaturated, so agitation can trigger crystals to form. Stirring gently and only as needed helps the syrup stay smooth and clear 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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