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Dessert

Spanish Syllabub

A frothy Spanish dessert made with almonds, rose water, sugar, lemon juice, fruit juice, wine, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Spanish Syllabub

Why it works: Almond and strawberry work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 433 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Spanish Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Blanch and pound the almonds in a mortar with the rose water.

  2. Mix in the pounded sugar, lemon juice, and strawberry or raspberry juice.

Make the syllabub

  1. Add the white wine and whole milk (or warm cream) to the mixture.

  2. Whip or mill the mixture until it is finely frothy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + strawberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together433 recipes

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

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Strawberry + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Strawberry + white winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together60 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole milk
Provides the liquid body and fat that the mixture whips into a frothy foam.
White wine
Adds acidity and liquid that thins the mixture and lightens the final flavour.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and helps the milk curdle slightly into a light texture.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps stabilise the foam as it is whipped.
Almonds
Contribute nutty richness and fat that add body to the mixture.

The step that matters

Whip or mill the mixture until it is finely frothy. Whipping incorporates air into the liquid, and the fat and proteins in the milk stabilise those bubbles into foam. Stopping too early leaves a thin drink, while overwhipping can make the foam collapse and turn grainy.

“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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