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Dessert

Another Way to Make Large Syllabub

A frothy dessert made with madeira, sweet wine, ratafia, powdered sugar, lemon, cinnamon, and heavy cream, served over macaroons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Large Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a large bowl, combine the madeira, sweet wine, ratafia, powdered sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, and cinnamon. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  2. Add the heavy cream and whisk until well combined and frothy.

Serve and store

  1. Place macaroons in the bottom of a serving dish and pile the frothy syllabub on top.

  2. Refrigerate; it can be kept for 9 to 10 days and tastes better after 3 to 4 days.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 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. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Wine + cinnamontop 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

Heavy cream
Whisking aerates the cream, creating the light, frothy body of the syllabub.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves fully into the wine base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and cuts the richness of the cream.
Madeira
Contributes fortified wine flavor and body to the base.
Ratafia
Adds a sweet, almond-like liqueur flavor to the base.

The step that matters

Whisk the cream until frothy. Whisking incorporates air into the cream so it holds a light, frothy structure. Over-whisking can turn the cream grainy or make it separate, so stop once it is well combined and frothy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against wine, sugar, cinnamon, 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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