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Wine and Egg Punch

A spiced punch made with wine, eggs, and spices, sweetened with powdered sugar candy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wine and Egg Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the infusions

  1. Steep the gunpowder tea in 1 quart of boiling water for 4-5 minutes, then strain.

  2. In 3 quarts of boiling water, steep the nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves in a muslin bag for 10 minutes.

Make the punch

  1. Beat the eggs with the powdered sugar candy until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the strained tea and wine to the egg mixture while constantly beating.

  3. Pour in the boiling spiced water while continuing to beat over a brisk fire until foam begins to rise.

  4. Quickly remove from heat and keep beating while adding the arrack or rum.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Tea + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs form the body and foamy, creamy structure of the punch as they are whisked.
Powdered sugar candy
Dissolves into the beaten eggs, adding sweetness and softening the egg flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and body, and its liquid is blended into the egg mixture gradually.
Arrack or pineapple rum
Adds strong spirit flavour and aroma, added off the heat so its alcohol is not boiled away.

The step that matters

Pour in the boiling spiced water while beating. Adding hot liquid slowly while beating gently warms the eggs without scrambling them. Pouring it in too fast, or letting the mixture overheat, can curdle the eggs and spoil the smooth texture.

Swap the pineapple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (tea, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, egg, sugar, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against tea, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, egg, sugar, wine. 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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