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Dessert

Syllabub, or Whipt Cream

A chilled dessert made from lemon zest, wine, sugar, cream, and fruit jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Syllabub, or Whipt Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Remove the yellow rind from the lemons and place it in the bottom of a deep dish.

  2. Squeeze the juice of the lemons into a large bowl with the white wine and mix in the powdered sugar.

  3. Gradually add the cream to the mixture and pour it into the dish with the lemon peel.

Rest and whip

  1. Let the mixture stand for three hours without stirring.

  2. Remove the lemon peel and beat the mixture with a whisk until it forms a stiff froth.

Serve

  1. In each glass, add a tablespoon or more of fruit jelly, then heap the syllabub on top.

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

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

  2. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Lemons
Their juice adds acidity that balances the sweetness and gives the syllabub its bright flavour.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour, and its acid helps thicken the cream as it stands.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the wine and juice.
Cream
Provides fat and body; whisking traps air in it to form a stiff froth.

The step that matters

Let the mixture stand without stirring. Standing lets the acid from the lemon juice and wine gradually thicken the cream. Stirring during this time would break up the setting and prevent a stable, stiff froth when whisked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, sugar, cream. 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 syllabub recipes

Whipped 15Staffordshire 7Lemon 6Birthday 3 See all 113 →

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