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Drink

Egg Cream

A chilled beverage made with a raw egg, sugar, wine, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Egg Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the raw egg until stiff and frothy.

  2. Add the sugar and wine, then beat well.

  3. Stir in the cream and beat thoroughly.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Blackberry + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together264 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + blackberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream 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

Raw egg
Whipped into a foam that gives the drink its light, frothy body.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the tartness of the wine.
Blackberry or black cherry wine
Supplies the main flavour and acidity of the drink.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving a smoother, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Beat the raw egg until stiff and frothy. The egg must be whipped enough to trap air and form a stable foam. Under-beaten egg stays heavy and runny, so the drink loses its light, frothy texture.

Swap the blackberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Blackberrythe original

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