Skip to main content
Drink

Cream, Sherry

A warm beverage made by simmering heavy cream with cinnamon and sugar, then adding sherry and garnishing with powdered cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Cream, Sherry

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Simmer the cream with the stick of cinnamon and powdered sugar for 15 minutes. Let the mixture cool.

Finish and serve

  1. Gradually add the sherry, stirring well.

  2. Strain the mixture into glasses.

  3. Garnish each glass with a sprinkle of powdered cinnamon.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Cream + sherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Heavy cream
Provides fat and body, giving the sauce richness and a smooth, thick texture.
Sherry
Adds wine-like flavour and aroma, with a slight acidity that lifts the cream.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cream and dissolves easily into it.
Cinnamon stick
Infuses warm, woody aroma into the cream as it simmers.

The step that matters

Gradually add the sherry, stirring well. Alcohol blended into cream in small amounts with steady stirring mixes evenly, avoiding streaks or pockets of sherry and keeping the cream smooth.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Peppermintfits less well

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

More sherry cream recipes

Sauce 3 See all 3 →

You might also like

Cinnamon TinctureCinnamon Tincture10 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes