Name: Syllabub Under the Cow
Ingredients: 1 pint cider; 1 bottle strong beer; 1 small nutmeg, grated; Sugar, to taste; Currants, washed and pricked; New milk (or substitute with milk from a teapot); Optional: currant wine or other wine, rum or brandy, lemon juice and peel

Why it works: Cider and currant work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 500 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Syllabub Under the Cow

Ingredients

1 pint cider
1 bottle strong beer
1 small nutmeg, grated
Sugar, to taste
Currants, washed and pricked
New milk (or substitute with milk from a teapot)
Optional: currant wine or other wine, rum or brandy, lemon juice and peel

Directions

Prepare

In a large punch bowl, combine the cider and strong beer.
Grate in the nutmeg and sweeten to taste.
Wash and prick the currants, then warm them by the fire until plump.

Make the syllabub

Place the bowl under a cow and add enough milk to create a strong froth.
Let it stand for one hour.
Strew the plump currants over the syllabub before serving.

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.

Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together500 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Cider + beertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together55 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Beer + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together298 recipes

Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together14,685 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Currant + milktop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk: Forms the frothy foam that tops the drink.
Cider: Provides the liquid base and tart, fruity flavour.
Strong beer: Adds body and a malty bitterness to the base.
Nutmeg: Adds warm, aromatic spice.

The step that matters

Adding the milk to create a froth. Milk must be poured in enough to build a strong froth on top. Its proteins and fat trap air when agitated, so too little milk gives a thin, weak foam rather than a stable topping.

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, beer, nutmeg, sugar, milk):

Applefits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cider, beer, nutmeg, sugar, 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.

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Syllabub Under the Cow