Skip to main content
Drink

Mulled Cider

A warm drink made by boiling cider, adding beaten egg, and seasoning with sugar and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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

Prepare

  1. Boil the cider in a pot.

  2. Beat the egg well in a bowl.

Combine

  1. Pour the beaten egg into the boiling cider.

  2. Quickly pour the mixture back and forth between two vessels several times.

  3. Add sugar and nutmeg to taste.

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. Egg + sugartop 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
Forms the base liquid and supplies most of the fruity flavor and acidity.
Egg
Adds body and a frothy, lightly thickened texture when beaten into the hot cider.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the cider's acidity.

The step that matters

Quickly pour the mixture back and forth between two vessels several times.. Egg proteins set when heated, so pouring the beaten egg into boiling cider can form clumps. Pouring quickly between vessels disperses the egg into fine strands before it sets, giving a smooth, frothy drink.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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

You might also like

Apple CiderApple Cider11 recipesVegetable SoupVegetable Soup350 recipesRaspberry VinegarRaspberry Vinegar214 recipesBrown Coffee with EggBrown Coffee with Egg175 recipes