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Dessert

To Make Lemon Syllabubs

A chilled lemon dessert made with cream, sugar, lemon juice, rind, wine, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 307 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Make Lemon Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a deep pot, combine cream, sugar, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, white wine, and sack.

  2. Whisk the mixture for 30 minutes.

Chill and rest

  1. Pour into glasses and refrigerate overnight.

  2. For best results, let it sit for 2-3 days before serving.

  3. It can be kept for up to a week if needed.

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. White wine + sherrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

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

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides the rich body and whipped texture of the finished syllabub.
Sugar
Sweetens the dessert and balances the sharpness of the lemon.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that thickens the cream and gives the dessert its bright flavour.
White wine
Contributes acidity and aroma, thinning the mixture slightly.
Sack
Adds fortified-wine depth and aroma to the dessert.

The step that matters

Whisking the mixture for 30 minutes. Whisking incorporates air into the cream and the acid in the lemon juice and wine thickens it as it sets. Stopping too early leaves the mixture thin, while over-whisking can turn the cream grainy or split it.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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