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The Malin's Champagne Cup

A chilled apple-based punch with cherry cordial, lemon cordial, orange flower water, seltzer water, and ice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The Malin's Champagne Cup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple infusion

  1. Peel the apples and pass them through a sieve.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the apples and cover tightly.

  3. Let it stand until cold, stirring occasionally.

  4. Strain the apple pulp through a clean cloth to extract clear juice.

Assemble and serve

  1. Put the juice into a punch bowl and add the cherry cordial, lemon cordial, and orange flower water.

  2. Mix well and chill on ice.

  3. Just before serving, add broken ice and seltzer water.

  4. Serve immediately with a silver ladle in wine glasses.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cherry + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together689 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Cherry + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together295 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

  5. Cherry + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the pulp that is steeped and strained into a clear, lightly flavoured juice base.
Cherry cordial
Adds concentrated sweetness and cherry flavour to the punch.
Lemon cordial
Adds sweetness and bright citrus acidity to balance the punch.
Seltzer water
Adds carbonation, giving the punch a lively, effervescent texture.

The step that matters

Straining the apple pulp through a clean cloth. Pressing or rushing this step lets cloudy pulp into the juice, which makes the punch murky. Letting the liquid drip through a cloth without squeezing keeps the juice clear.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cherry, lemon, orange):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Cranberryfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cherry, lemon, orange. 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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