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Dessert

Syllabub and Cream

A chilled dessert made from lemon zest, wine, sugar, cream, and preserved fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Syllabub and Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Pare the rinds of the lemons and place them in the bottom of a deep dish.

  2. Press the juice of the lemons into a bowl containing the wine and sugar.

Make the syllabub

  1. Gradually mix in the cream.

  2. Pour the mixture into the dish with the lemon peel and let it sit untouched for 3 hours.

  3. Remove the lemon peel and beat the mixture with rods until it forms a stiff froth.

Serve

  1. In each glass, add a tablespoonful of preserved fruit, then heap the syllabub on top.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  4. Wine + creamtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Cream
Provides the body and richness, and beats into a stiff froth that holds its shape.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that gradually thickens the cream and brightens the flavour.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma, and helps thicken the cream along with the lemon juice.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the lemon and wine.

The step that matters

Let the mixture sit untouched for 3 hours. The acid from the lemon juice and wine slowly thickens the cream while it rests. Disturbing it during this time can stop it setting properly, so it should be left alone until it is ready to whip.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, cream. 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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