Name: Whipped Syllabubs
Ingredients: ½ cup sherry; 2 tablespoons brandy; ½ pint thick cream; grated nutmeg to taste; juice of ½ lemon; sugar to taste

Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon 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 ↓

Whipped Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

Mix sherry and brandy in a bowl.
Stir the mixture into thick cream.
Add grated nutmeg, lemon juice, and sugar to sweeten.
Pour the cream into glasses.
Top with whipped cream and serve.

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.

Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,920 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Apricotfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, brandy, cream, nutmeg, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.