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Drink

Syllabubs, Solid

A frothy, lemon‑flavored drink made with cream, wine, and sugar, topped with froth and garnished with hundreds and thousands.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Syllabubs, Solid

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine the cream, white wine, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, and sugar in a bowl and mix well.

  2. Whisk the mixture until frothy, then remove the scum as it rises and drain it through a fine sieve.

  3. Half-fill glasses with the scum and top with the froth.

Make the longer-lasting version

  1. For a longer-lasting syllabub, mix the grated rind and strained juice of three lemons with powdered sugar.

  2. Add one and a half pints of good wine and one quart thick cream; optionally add a little brandy.

  3. Whisk the mixture until well frothed, then gently pour the froth into glasses.

  4. Garnish with hundreds and thousands and store in a cool place.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  4. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whipped into froth that forms the light, airy body of the syllabub.
White wine
Supplies acidity and flavour that cut through the richness of the cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the liquid, adding sweetness without grittiness.
Good wine
Adds further wine flavour and liquid to the longer-lasting version.

The step that matters

Whisking to froth and draining the scum. Whisking cream incorporates air into fat globules, forming foam, but over-whipping turns it grainy and buttery. Removing the scum as it rises keeps the froth light and clean.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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