Skip to main content
Drink

Caudle Cup

A warm drink made from oatmeal gruel, egg yolk, sherry or port, lemon rind, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 Cup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine the oatmeal gruel and egg yolk.

  2. Add the sherry or port, grated lemon rind, sugar cubes, and nutmeg.

  3. Heat the mixture over low heat, stirring continuously until warm.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

Egg yolk
Thickens the drink and adds richness through its proteins as it warms.
Oatmeal gruel
Provides the thin, liquid base and body of the drink.
Sherry or port
Adds alcohol-based warmth and fruity, wine-like flavour.
Sugar cubes
Adds sweetness to balance the sherry or port.

The step that matters

Heat over low heat while stirring continuously. Egg yolk thickens as its proteins set with heat, so high heat or no stirring can curdle the mixture into lumps. Gentle, constant stirring keeps it smooth and evenly warmed.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sherry, sugar, nutmeg. 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 WheyLemon Whey33 recipesLemon WineLemon Wine31 recipesLemon SquashLemon Squash10 recipesLemon EssenceLemon Essence8 recipes