Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Clarified Sugar
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the syrup
Place sugar lumps into a preserving pan.
Add ½ cup cold water per pound of sugar for syrup.
Add ⅓ cup cold water per pound of sugar for candying.
Beat the egg white.
Mix the egg white with the water.
Pour the mixture over the sugar.
Stir the mixture until the sugar is nearly melted.
Clarify and boil
Place the mixture over gentle heat.
Do not stir once the scum begins to rise.
Let it boil for 5 minutes.
Remove from heat.
Let it stand for a minute.
Carefully skim off the scum.
Return the pan to the heat.
When boiling, add a little cold water to help with skimming.
Repeat the skimming process until the syrup is clear.
Finish
To test for candying, take a small amount between your fingers.
For barley-sugar, add essence of lemon and pour onto a broad dish.
When the edges harden, roll it into sticks.
For caramel, oil a mold and draw out the sugar in threads.
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 + syruptop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,842 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Lemon + barleytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
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Syrup + lemontop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,235 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Sugar
- Forms the syrup and, once boiled, the candy or caramel structure.
- Egg white
- Binds to impurities and rises as scum, which is skimmed off to clarify the syrup.
- Cold water
- Dissolves the sugar into syrup and helps control boiling and skimming.
The step that matters
Do not stir once the scum begins to rise. Stirring breaks up the coagulated egg white scum and mixes impurities back into the syrup, leaving it cloudy instead of clear.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, syrup, egg, barley):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, syrup, egg, barley. 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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