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Egg-flip

A sweet alcoholic beverage made with eggs, sugar, water, cognac brandy, and rum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cognac brandy and rum share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol, which smells allspice, anise. The science ↓

Egg-flip

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs, omitting the whites of two.

  2. Work the sugar into the beaten eggs.

  3. Add the boiling water and mix well.

  4. Stir in the cognac brandy and old rum.

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. Cognac brandy + rumtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together68 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-propylphenol (allspice, anise).

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + rumtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,589 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Sugar + cognac brandytop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide body and richness, giving the drink a thick, creamy texture when beaten.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the strong alcohol.
Cognac brandy
Contributes warmth and aroma to the drink.
Old rum
Adds depth of flavour and further warmth.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water to the beaten eggs. Pouring boiling water into beaten eggs can partly cook and curdle the egg proteins if added too fast. Adding it gradually while mixing keeps the texture smooth and frothy.

“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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