Skip to main content
Dessert

Corn Cob Syrup

A syrup made by boiling corn cobs, straining the liquid, and sweetening with sugar and corn syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Corn Cob Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Extract the cob liquid

  1. Pack the corn cobs in a kettle, standing on end and fitting them closely.

  2. Pour cold water over the cobs until they are completely submerged.

  3. Boil the cobs slowly for 1.5 hours, adding boiling water as needed to keep them submerged.

  4. Remove the cobs from the water and strain the liquid through a cloth.

Make the syrup

  1. For each cup of liquid, add ⅔ cup of light sea sugar.

  2. Boil the sugar and liquid together until it reaches a syrup consistency, about 10 minutes for 5 cups of liquid.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add ¼ cup of white corn syrup for each cup of cob water used.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Corn + syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Full-sized red corn cobs
Provide the flavour and natural sweetness that the cob water carries into the syrup.
Light sea sugar
Adds sweetness and body, thickening the liquid into a syrup as it reduces.
White corn syrup
Adds sweetness and helps keep the syrup smooth and resistant to crystallising.

The step that matters

Boiling the sugar and liquid to syrup consistency. Boiling concentrates the sugar and water evaporates, so the syrup thickens as it cools. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long can make it overly thick or prone to crystallising.

“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.

You might also like

Corn CakeCorn Cake90 recipesCorn Starch CakeCorn Starch Cake89 recipesCorn CakesCorn Cakes22 recipesGreen Corn PuddingGreen Corn Pudding14 recipes