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Drink

Egg Cream

A frothy drink made with egg white, yolk, sugar, milk, water, and fruit juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Cream

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg white to a stiff froth.

  2. Add the sugar and beat again.

  3. Add the egg yolk and beat until combined.

  4. Stir in the milk, cold water, and fruit juice.

  5. Serve immediately.

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 + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 white
Whipped into a stiff foam that gives the drink its light, airy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps stabilize the whipped egg white foam.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and body to the foam, making it smoother.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess to the mixture.
Fruit juice
Adds acidity and fruity flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the liquids and serving right away. Egg white foam is fragile. Adding liquids too vigorously can deflate it, and the foam slowly collapses as it stands, so the drink is best served immediately to keep its lightness.

“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.

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