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Drink

Cream Nectar

A sweet, effervescent drink made with sugar, tartaric acid, water, egg whites, corn starch, lemon juice, and flavoring extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream Nectar

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Dissolve sugar and tartaric acid in water and boil for 5 minutes.

Finish and bottle

  1. When cool, beat egg whites to a stiff froth.

  2. Stir in corn starch and lemon juice.

  3. Add flavoring extract and mix well.

  4. Bottle and seal securely, then store in a cool, dark place.

Serve

  1. To serve, mix 2 tablespoons of the nectar in a tumbler half full of cold water.

  2. Add a pinch of baking soda, stir well, and enjoy the effervescence.

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. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Corn + strawberrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together100 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Lemon + strawberrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,206 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

Tartaric acid
Provides the sour taste and reacts with baking soda to produce fizz when served.
Egg whites
Whipped to a stiff froth to add foam and a light, airy body.
Corn starch
Thickens the mixture slightly and gives it a smoother, fuller texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor.

The step that matters

Beat the egg whites to a stiff froth after the syrup has cooled. Hot syrup would deflate the egg white foam and make it collapse, so the syrup must be cool before the whites are beaten to stiff peaks for a light, airy texture.

Swap the strawberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, corn, lemon):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Strawberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, corn, lemon. 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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