Skip to main content
Drink

Mulled Cider

A warm beverage made by boiling sweet cider with spices, then adding beaten eggs and serving with toasted raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cider and raisin work together. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 588 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Mulled Cider

Ingredients

Directions

Make the spiced cider

  1. Add the mixed whole spices to the sweet cider.

  2. Boil for 5 minutes and strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the eggs thoroughly and add them to the hot cider.

  2. Serve immediately with hot toasted raisins in 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. Cider + raisintop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together588 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Egg + raisintop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Cider + eggtop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet cider
Forms the liquid base and provides the main sweetness and fruit flavour.
Mixed whole spices
Infuse the cider with warm, aromatic flavour as it heats.
Eggs
Add richness and body to the hot cider as they set gently in the liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten eggs to the hot cider. Beaten egg proteins set when heated, so they can form lumps or strands if the liquid is too hot or the eggs go in too fast. Adding them gradually while stirring keeps the drink smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Applefits better
  2. Currantfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

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

You might also like

Raisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesApple CiderApple Cider11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipes