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Dessert

Lemon Syllabub

A frothy lemon dessert made with lemon peel, juice, sugar, white wine, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Lemon Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Grate the peel of the lemons into a large bowl.

  2. Add the strained juice of the lemons, sugar, white wine, and cream.

  3. Let the mixture stand for 3 to 4 hours.

Froth and serve

  1. Whisk it well and carefully lift the froth off as it forms.

  2. Place the froth on a sieve.

  3. Pour the remaining mixture into glasses and top 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. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

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

  5. Lemon + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,640 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Cream
Provides fat and body, and whisks into a light froth that tops the dessert.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour that balances the sweetness and richness of the cream.
Lemons
The peel adds aroma from its oils, and the juice adds sharp acidity.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the lemon and wine.

The step that matters

Whisking and lifting the froth. Whisk until the froth holds its shape but stop before the cream turns grainy or buttery. Lift the froth off as it forms, because the foam collapses if left sitting.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, white wine, cream. 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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