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Drink

Frozen Punch

A chilled beverage made from cream, water, rum, egg yolk, saccharine, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and rum work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 842 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Frozen Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Scald half of the cream with the cold water.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg yolk and cook over hot water until the mixture thickens.

Finish and freeze

  1. Cool the mixture, then add the remaining ingredients.

  2. Freeze until solid.

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. Cream + rumtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together842 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Rum + eggtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

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

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen punch a smooth, creamy texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the custard as its proteins set with gentle heat, adding body and richness.
Rum
Adds aroma and flavor, and alcohol softens the frozen texture by lowering the freezing point.
Saccharine
Provides sweetness without adding sugar.

The step that matters

Thickening the egg yolk over hot water. Egg proteins set with heat, so cooking gently and stopping as soon as the mixture thickens prevents it from curdling into grainy lumps.

“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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