Skip to main content
Dessert

Egg Flip

A dessert made by beating egg white, adding boiling milk, pepper, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Egg Flip

Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Egg Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff.

  3. Sprinkle the white pepper over the beaten egg white.

Make and serve

  1. Pour the boiling milk over the egg white while stirring vigorously.

  2. Add sugar to taste and serve.

  3. Brandy may be added if desired.

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

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

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Egg + white peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,312 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. White pepper + milktop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,304 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Milk and sugar 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 white
Beaten until stiff, it traps air and gives the drink a light, frothy texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base, and its heat partly cooks the egg white as it is poured in.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling milk over the egg white while stirring. Pour the hot milk in slowly while stirring vigorously so the egg white is distributed and gently cooked rather than clumping into lumps. Stirring keeps the foam fine and smooth.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes