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Drink

Egg Drinks

A drink made by whisking egg yolk with sugar and milk or cream, then adding hot tea, coffee, wine, or cold beverage.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and tea work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 738 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Egg Drinks

Ingredients

Directions

Start the egg mixture

  1. Beat the yolk of the egg with the sifted sugar and milk or cream.

Add the hot liquid

  1. Pour the hot tea or coffee over the egg mixture while stirring with one hand.

  2. Use the same method for hot wine or spirits.

Beat and finish

  1. Beat the egg white with the yolk and add sugar.

  2. Gradually mix in the liquid.

  3. Beat the yolk and white together for five minutes.

  4. Add the liquid, ensuring it's below boiling point.

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. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Sugar + teatop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,204 recipes

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

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
Beaten yolk and white give the drink body and a light, frothy, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and helps the beaten egg hold its froth.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the drink.
Tea or coffee
Provides the main hot liquid and its flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the hot liquid. Pour the hot liquid in slowly while stirring, and keep it below boiling point. Hot liquid poured in quickly can cook the egg in lumps instead of blending it smoothly into the drink.

“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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