Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cream Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the syrup
Boil the sugar, tartaric acid, lemon juice, and water together for 5 minutes.
Let the mixture cool nearly to room temperature.
Finish and store
Add the beaten egg whites and the flour mixed with the egg.
Stir in the wintergreen essence or your preferred flavoring.
Bottle the mixture and store it in a cool place.
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 + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- White sugar
- Provides sweetness and the bulk of the body of the drink.
- Tartaric acid
- Adds sharp acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the drink its tang.
- Egg whites
- Whipped to a froth, they add foam and a light, creamy texture.
- Flour
- Mixed with the egg, it helps thicken and give the drink body.
The step that matters
Let the mixture cool nearly to room temperature. Adding the beaten egg whites and flour while the syrup is still very hot would cook the egg and cause lumps. Cooling first keeps the mixture smooth and lets the foam stay intact.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“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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