Skip to main content
Dessert

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd’s Sack Posset

A sweet, creamy posset made with Sack wine, milk, sugar, eggs, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,685 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd’s Sack Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Heat sugar and Sack over flaming coals until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Bring the milk to a boil in a skillet, then let it cool.

Make the posset

  1. Combine the cooled milk and Sack mixture with the beaten eggs.

  2. Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

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. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

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

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

  5. Wine + milktop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (fenugreek, curry).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Coagulate on gentle heat to thicken the posset into a custard.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a creamy custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the posset and dissolves into the warm Sack.
Sack
Adds wine flavour and acidity to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg proteins set at a moderate temperature, and too much heat or too little stirring can scramble the eggs into curds. Gentle, constant stirring keeps the custard smooth as it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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