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Beer Soup. No. 1

A soup made with stale bread, water, cinnamon, salt, sugar, root beer, cream, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Beer Soup. No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil chopped bread, water, cinnamon, salt, and sugar in a pot for 30 minutes.

  2. Strain the mixture through a colander.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in hot cream and egg yolks until combined.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Bread + beertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together146 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity).

  5. Bread + cinnamontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,705 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

White stale bread
Soaks up liquid and breaks down during boiling, giving the soup body.
Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the soup as they gently set in the warm liquid.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the savory bread base.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma and spiced flavor to the broth.
Imported root beer
Adds sweet, spiced flavor and aroma to the soup.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. Adding them to liquid that is too hot can scramble them into grainy specks. Stir steadily and keep the soup warm rather than boiling so the yolks thicken smoothly.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Celeryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, beer, cream, egg. 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.

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