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Champagne Cup

A chilled champagne cocktail with soda water, brandy, powdered sugar, cucumber rind, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Champagne and brandy work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 169 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Champagne Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pitcher, combine the champagne, soda water, brandy, and powdered sugar.

  2. Add the cucumber rind and stir gently.

  3. Just before serving, add a large piece of ice to chill the mixture.

  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. Champagne + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together169 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Champagne + cucumbertop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

  3. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Champagne + sugartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together424 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Brandy + cucumbertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together97 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Champagne
Provides the sparkling base and most of the punch's aroma and body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity and alcohol of the wine and brandy.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic strength and warm, aromatic depth to the punch.
Cucumber rind
Contributes a fresh, green aroma and subtle flavor to the punch.

The step that matters

Add the ice just before serving. Carbonation escapes quickly from champagne and soda water, so adding ice early and letting the punch sit will leave it flat and watery as the ice melts.

Swap the cucumber

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Beetrootfits about as well
  4. Cucumberthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against champagne, brandy, 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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