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Drink

To Make Sack-Posset

A sweetened cream drink flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

To Make Sack-Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the milk

  1. Boil the cream or milk.

  2. Sweeten it with sugar.

  3. Season with cinnamon and nutmeg.

Combine and finish

  1. Warm the wine in a separate vessel.

  2. Gradually stir the warm wine into the milk.

  3. Pour the mixture quickly from one vessel to another until smooth.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cream or milk
Provides the rich base and body that the wine curdles into a soft set.
Canary wine (sack)
Its acidity curdles the hot cream, giving the posset its characteristic thick, custard-like texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the wine.

The step that matters

Gradually stir the warm wine into the milk. Adding the acidic wine slowly to hot cream lets it curdle evenly into a smooth set. Pouring it in all at once can cause coarse, separated curds.

“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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