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Mulled Ale

A warm ale beverage with sugar, ginger, cloves, and eggs, frothy after mixing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Mulled Ale

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Mulled Ale

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the ale with sugar, ginger, and cloves.

  2. Beat the eggs in the cold ale in a large jug.

  3. Pour the boiling ale onto the egg mixture.

  4. Pour the mixture back and forth between jugs for several minutes to froth it.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Ginger + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Ale
Forms the main liquid and gives the drink its malty, bitter base flavour.
Eggs
Partly set by the hot ale, thickening the drink and giving it a creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the bitterness of the ale.
Ginger
Adds a warm, spicy aroma to the drink.
Cloves
Adds a strong, warm aroma in small amounts.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling ale onto the eggs. If the hot ale is poured in too quickly, the egg proteins can set in lumps, like scrambled eggs. Cold ale in the egg mixture helps lower its temperature, and pouring slowly while beating keeps the mixture smooth.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, egg. 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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