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Drink

Mulled Cider

A warm drink made with cider, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes. Both carry acetic acid, which smells sour, vinegar. The science ↓

Mulled Cider

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cider base

  1. Combine cider, sugar, and nutmeg in a saucepan.

  2. Warm gently, avoiding scalding.

Make the egg mixture

  1. Beat egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gradually add 3 teaspoons of sugar.

  3. Beat egg yolks and fold them into the egg whites.

  4. Stir the egg mixture into the warm cider.

Heat and serve

  1. Quickly place over high heat, stirring until it begins to rise (do not boil).

  2. Remove from heat.

  3. Pour into a pitcher.

  4. Serve warm.

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. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  2. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Cider + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together884 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Cider
Provides the liquid base and main flavor of the drink.
Eggs
Whites whipped to stiff foam and yolks folded in give the drink a light, thickened body.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps stabilize the whipped egg whites.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the cider.

The step that matters

Quickly place over high heat, stirring until it begins to rise (do not boil).. Egg proteins thicken when heated but curdle or scramble if overheated or boiled, so the mixture must be heated briskly and removed as soon as it rises.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, sugar, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, sugar, egg. 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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