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 ↓
Ginger Beer
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
Combine boiling water, sugar, ginger, and cream of tartar or lemon in a vessel, and stir until the sugar dissolves.
Let the mixture cool to about the temperature of new milk.
Add yeast and pour onto a piece of floating bread.
Ferment and bottle
Cover with a cloth and let it sit undisturbed for 24 hours.
Strain the mixture and pour it into bottles, filling them three-quarters full.
Cork the bottles tightly and tie the corks.
Serve
In warm weather, the ginger beer will be ready to drink in two days.
If storing for a week or two, reduce sugar by a quarter.
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 + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together14,054 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Ginger + breadtop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together565 recipes
Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + breadtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,789 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Ginger + creamtop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,137 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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
- Yeast
- Ferments the sugar into carbon dioxide, which makes the drink fizzy.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast during fermentation and provides the drink's sweetness.
- Ginger
- Adds the spicy aroma and flavour that defines the drink.
- Cream of tartar or lemon
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps balance the sweetness.
The step that matters
Bottling and corking. Fermentation keeps producing carbon dioxide inside sealed bottles, so corks must be tight and bottles should not be overfilled. Otherwise pressure can build and bottles may burst.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream, bread):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Celeryfits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, bread. 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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