Name: White Caudle
Ingredients: ½ cup thick gruel; ⅓ cup best brandy or part brandy and part white wine; 1 tablespoon fine moist sugar; grated nutmeg to taste; rusks, biscuits, or dry toast for serving

Why it works: Nutmeg and biscuit match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 368 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

White Caudle

Ingredients

½ cup thick gruel
⅓ cup best brandy or part brandy and part white wine
1 tablespoon fine moist sugar
grated nutmeg to taste
rusks, biscuits, or dry toast for serving

Directions

Prepare

Prepare thick gruel.

Make the caudle

For each ½ cup of gruel, combine ⅓ cup brandy or a mix of brandy and white wine, 1 tablespoon sugar, and grated nutmeg in a jug.
Pour the hot gruel into the jug and stir well.
Serve immediately in cups with rusks, biscuits, or dry toast.

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.

Nutmeg + biscuittop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together368 recipes

Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Sugar + biscuittop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,874 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together23,364 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Gruel: Forms the thick, warm body of the drink, giving it substance and mouthfeel.
Brandy: Adds alcoholic warmth and a rich aroma to the drink.
Sugar: Sweetens the drink and balances the sharpness of the spirit.