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Drink

Mulled Cider

A warm drink made by boiling cider with cloves, eggs, and sugar, then frothing and serving with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Leslie · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and clove work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 756 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Add six eggs to a quart of cider.

  2. Add a handful of whole cloves to the cider and bring to a boil.

Make the mulled cider

  1. While the cider is boiling, beat the eggs in a large pitcher, adding sugar until the mixture is very sweet.

  2. Pour the boiling cider into the beaten eggs, and continue pouring the mixture back and forth between the two pitchers until a fine froth forms.

  3. Pour the warm mixture into glasses and grate nutmeg over each.

By Eliza Leslie. 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.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Cider + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together756 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Cider + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together384 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Clove + eggtop 26% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together9,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Give body and a frothy, thickened texture when beaten and combined with hot cider.
Cider
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour of the drink.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness to balance the tart cider and eggs.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling cider into the beaten eggs. Pouring the hot cider over the eggs and transferring the mixture back and forth aerates it into a fine froth. Pouring too fast or without stirring can cause the eggs to scramble rather than blend smoothly.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Nutmegbetter flavor fit
  2. Cinnamonbetter flavor fit
  3. Allspiceabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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