Why it works: Sherry and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓
London Syllabub
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
Combine 2 ounces loaf sugar with ¾ pint sherry or Madeira in a bowl.
Grate ½ small nutmeg into the mixture.
Add the milk and serve
Use fresh milk from the cow if possible; otherwise, use the freshest milk available, and warm it until lukewarm.
Pour the warm milk from a height through a strainer onto the wine mixture.
Froth the syllabub before serving.
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.
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Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,479 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together14,685 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,246 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together23,364 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Loaf sugar
- Sweetens the drink and dissolves into the wine base.
- Sherry or madeira
- Provides acidity and flavour, and the wine curdles the milk to form the syllabub.
- Milk
- Forms the body of the drink, becoming thick and frothy when poured onto the wine.
- Nutmeg
- Adds aroma and warm spice to the finished drink.
The step that matters
Pouring the warm milk from a height. Pouring the milk from a height through a strainer breaks it into fine streams that curdle on contact with the acidic wine, producing a light, frothy texture rather than a smooth mixture.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Gingerfits about as well
- Clovefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, milk. 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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