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Drink

Syllabubs Under the Cow

A punch made with sugar, lemon juice, sherry, brandy, beaten cream, egg white, ratafias, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Syllabubs Under the Cow

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a large punch bowl, combine the sugar, lemon juice, sherry, brandy, and beaten cream with egg white.

  2. Stir the mixture briskly for 1-2 minutes.

  3. Add the ratafias to the mixture.

  4. Have the dairymaid milk the cow into the bowl until it is full.

Rest and serve

  1. Cover and let it sit untouched until the next day.

  2. Grate nutmeg on top before serving.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Lump sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the lemon and sherry.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and helps thicken the cream.
Sherry
Provides the wine base and flavour of the syllabub.
Brandy
Adds strength and warming aroma to the mixture.
Cream
Provides fat and body, forming the light, rich foam that gives the syllabub its texture.
Ratafias
Add almond-like flavour and a crisp, chewy bite to the dessert.

The step that matters

Stir briskly before adding the milk. Briskly stirring the acidic wine and lemon mixture with the cream helps it thicken into a light, stable foam; the record gives only 1-2 minutes, so stopping early may leave it thin.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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