Name: Eggnog Plain
Ingredients: 2 eggs; ½ to 1 cup milk (cold or warm) or boiling water; sugar to taste; flavoring to taste (such as vanilla or nutmeg)

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Eggnog Plain

Ingredients

2 eggs
½ to 1 cup milk (cold or warm) or boiling water
sugar to taste
flavoring to taste (such as vanilla or nutmeg)

Directions

Beat the egg whites and yolks together or separately.
Sweeten and flavor the mixture to your taste.
Add ½ to 1 cup of cold or warm milk or boiling water.
Serve immediately for best digestion.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together88,785 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs: Provide richness and body to the drink.
Milk: Adds liquid and moisture that thins the eggs into a drinkable texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the richness of the eggs.
Flavoring: Adds aroma that gives the drink its character.

“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.