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Drink

Brown Caudle

A warm drink made from oatmeal, mace, lemon peel, water, ale, and white wine, sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Brown Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil oatmeal, mace, and lemon peel in water for 15 minutes, ensuring it doesn't boil over.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the ale.

  3. Sweeten to taste and stir in the white wine.

  4. If not using white wine, use half ale instead.

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Mace + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,329 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Mace + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,315 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Oatmeal
Thickens the liquid and gives the caudle its body and mild, grainy flavor.
Ale
Adds malty flavor and liquid to the finished caudle.
White wine
Adds acidity and a bright, fruity note to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boiling the oatmeal mixture. The mixture must be watched so it does not boil over, since starch-rich oatmeal foams and can spill. Boiling for the full 15 minutes lets the oatmeal starch soften and release flavor into the water.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, white wine. 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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