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Dessert

Solid Syllabub

A chilled dessert made from cream, white wine, lemon juice, and sugar, whipped and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Solid Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the cream and white wine.

  2. Add the lemon juice and grated lemon peel.

  3. Sweeten with sugar to taste.

  4. Whip the mixture until frothy.

  5. Remove any scum that rises to the top and drain it on a fine sieve.

  6. Half fill glasses with the drained scum and top with the froth.

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 + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Cream + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Cream + lemontop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar 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

Cream
Whipped into a light froth that forms the body of the dessert.
White wine
Provides acidity and flavour, and thins the cream so it can be whipped.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the rich cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the mixture to taste.

The step that matters

Whip the mixture until frothy. Whipping must stop at a frothy stage; overwhipping cream turns it grainy and can cause it to separate. Acidic wine and lemon can thicken cream unevenly, so watch the texture closely.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, white wine, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, white wine, sugar. 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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