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Cream of Vanilla

A vanilla cordial made by mixing vanilla tincture, wine spirits, and syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Spirit and wine work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 701 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Cream of Vanilla

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cordial

  1. Add 12 drops of tincture of vanilla to 1 quart of spirits of wine and shake well to combine.

  2. Add 1 quart of syrup and mix thoroughly.

  3. Let it stand for 15 minutes.

Filter and bottle

  1. Filter through filtering paper 2 or 3 times, or once if it is clear.

  2. Bottle the cordial.

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. Spirit + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together701 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Vanilla + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,855 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Vanilla + spirittop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together53 recipes

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

  4. Spirit + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Vanilla + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Tincture of vanilla
Supplies the vanilla flavour that defines the cordial.
Spirits of wine
Acts as the alcoholic base that carries the flavour and keeps the cordial stable.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and body to balance the strong spirit.

The step that matters

Filter through filtering paper. Cloudiness from the mixing settles slowly, and filtering removes the haze. Repeating the filtering until the liquid runs clear gives a bright, stable cordial.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (spirit, wine, syrup):

  1. Applefits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Apricotfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against spirit, wine, syrup. 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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