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Cowslip Wine

A homemade wine made from cowslip pips, lump sugar, lemon and Seville orange, fermented with brewers' yeast and finished with brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Isabella Beeton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 22 ingredients
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Cowslip Wine

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cowslip Wine

3 persons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the liquor

  1. Boil the sugar and water together for ½ hour, carefully removing all the scum as it rises.

  2. Pour the boiling liquor on the orange and lemon rinds and the strained juice.

Ferment

  1. When milk-warm, add the cowslip pips or flowers, picked from the stalks and seeds, and 3 tablespoonfuls of good fresh brewers' yeast per 9 gallons of wine.

  2. Let it ferment 3 or 4 days.

Age and bottle

  1. Put all together in a cask with the brandy and let it remain for 2 months.

  2. Bottle it off for use.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

901Calories
39 gProtein
28 gFat
118 gCarbs

Counts 12 of 14 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 12 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Shrimp100g cooked99
Orange1 medium (131g)62
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Brandynot in our table0
Macenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Isabella Beeton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Butter + crabtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  4. Wine + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,493 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cowslip pips
Supplies the main floral flavour and aroma of the wine.
Brewers' yeast
Ferments the sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide, driving the wine's fermentation.
Brandy
Raises the alcohol content and adds body to the finished wine.
Lemons
Add acidity and bright citrus aroma from the juice and rinds.
Seville orange
Adds aromatic citrus oils from the rind and some tartness.

The step that matters

Adding the yeast when milk-warm. Yeast works best at a mild warmth. If the liquid is still hot, the yeast can be killed before fermentation starts, so the wine may not ferment properly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (wine, brandy, vinegar, butter, lemon, orange, crab):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, brandy, vinegar, butter, lemon, orange, crab. 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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