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Dessert

Syllabub

A frothy dessert made with brandy, lemon, sugar, cream, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Mix the brandy, lemon juice, grated lemon peel, and sugar in a bowl.

  2. Stir this mixture into the thick cream.

Whisk and drain

  1. Whisk in the well-beaten egg whites for an hour.

  2. As the froth rises, place it on a sieve to drain.

Serve

  1. Pour a little port and sweet wine into glasses and fill them with the froth.

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. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Thick cream
Provides the rich body and fat that the whisked froth is built on.
Egg whites
Whisked into foam, they trap air and give the syllabub its light, airy texture.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic aroma and flavour that balances the sweetness of the dish.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich cream and cuts its sweetness.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites for an hour. Egg white foam must be whisked enough to hold air, but over-whisking can break it down and make it grainy. Watching the froth as it rises helps the cook judge when it is ready to drain.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, 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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