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Drink

Cider Egg Nog

A chilled egg-based drink made with sweet cider, eggs, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Cider Egg Nog

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat the egg yolks until creamy.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  3. Combine the cider and beaten yolks, then sweeten to taste.

  4. Fold in half of the beaten egg whites and season with grated nutmeg.

Chill and serve

  1. Chill in ice until very cold.

  2. Serve in punch glasses with a teaspoon of meringue on top of each glass.

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. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Cider + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the drink, while whites whipped to stiff peaks add a light, foamy meringue.
Sweet cider
Forms the liquid base and provides the main sweetness and fruity flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink, adjusted to taste after the cider and yolks are combined.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites to stiff peaks. Egg whites need enough air beaten in to hold stiff peaks. Underbeaten whites stay runny and will not hold up as a meringue on top of the glass or lighten the drink when folded in.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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