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 ↓
Solid Syllabub
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the base
Grate the yellow part of the lemons over the sugar until removed.
Add more sugar to make a total of ½ pound.
Crush the sugar to a powder and place it in a bowl.
Strain the juice of the lemons into the bowl.
Whisk and drain
Add the sherry or raisin wine and double cream to the mixture.
Whisk the mixture until it forms a solid froth.
Pour the froth onto a muslin sieve and let it sit for 12 hours.
Serve in glasses.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,273 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sherry + creamtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,038 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,141 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Double cream
- Provides the fat that whisks into a stable, thick froth.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dish and helps stabilise the whipped cream structure.
- Lemons
- Add acidity and aroma from the juice and zest.
- Sherry or raisin wine
- Adds alcohol-based flavour and thins the mixture before whisking.
The step that matters
Whisk the mixture until it forms a solid froth. Cream must be whisked just to a stable froth; overwhipping can turn it grainy or buttery. Cream that has rested 24 hours whips more readily and holds its shape better, which is why the recipe calls for it.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, sherry, cream):
- Vanillafits better
- Strawberryfits better
- Pineapplefits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, 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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