Skip to main content
Drink

Caudle

Caudle is a fine, smooth gruel made from grits, sugar, wine, lemon peel, nutmeg, butter, and optional brandy or lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gruel

  1. Make a fine, smooth gruel by boiling the fine grits in water.

  2. Strain the gruel when well boiled and stir it occasionally until it cools.

Finish and serve

  1. When ready to serve, add sugar, white wine, lemon peel, and nutmeg.

  2. Optionally, stir in brandy or lemon juice for extra flavor.

  3. For a richer version, boil ½ cup of gruel with butter, brandy, and white wine.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Nutmeg + brandytop 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

Fine grits
Thicken the liquid into a smooth, gruel-like body as they cook and soften.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the wine and lemon.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma, lightly flavouring the thin gruel.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the version made with extra butter.

The step that matters

Straining the gruel well. Grits boiled until fully softened and then strained give the smooth texture the dish depends on. Stopping early leaves grainy bits that remain gritty when the drink is served.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, white wine, nutmeg, brandy, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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

More caudle recipes

Rice 21Flour 14Cold 8Brown 6White 4for the Sick and Lying-In 3 See all 29 →

You might also like

Lemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesWine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipes