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Drink

White Elder Wine

A fermented beverage made from elderflowers, sugar, water, egg whites, lemon juice, and yeast.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

White Elder Wine

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the sugar with water and beaten egg whites.

  2. Skim the mixture and add elderflowers.

  3. Remove from heat when near cold.

  4. Stir in lemon juice and yeast, mixing well.

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 + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

White powdered sugar
Provides the sugar that yeast ferments into alcohol and gives the wine its sweetness.
Elderflowers
Adds the floral aroma and flavour that define the wine.
Egg whites
When boiled, they coagulate and carry impurities to the surface, clarifying the liquid for skimming.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and supports a healthy fermentation.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide, turning the liquid into wine.

The step that matters

Remove from heat when near cold. The liquid must cool to a safe temperature before yeast is added, because hot liquid will kill yeast and stall fermentation.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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