Skip to main content
Dessert

Syllabubs

A frothy dessert drink made with lemon rind, white wine, cream, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: White wine and brandy work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 620 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the wine

  1. Steep the thin rind of the lemons in the white wine overnight, covered tightly.

  2. The next day, remove the lemon peel from the wine.

Whisk and serve

  1. In a large bowl, combine the wine, cream, brandy, lemon juice, and sugar.

  2. Beat the mixture to a froth using a whisk.

  3. Prepare syllabub glasses on a tray and skim the froth off as it rises.

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. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White wine
Provides the acidic, flavoured liquid base that thins the cream and carries the lemon.
Rich cream
Supplies fat and body, whipping into a froth that holds its shape.
Lemons
Add acidity and aromatic oils from the rind, brightening the sweet cream.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour that complements the wine and lemon.

The step that matters

Skim the froth as it rises. Froth forms and rises quickly while whisking, and if it is left too long it collapses back into the liquid. Skimming it off as it forms gives a light, stable foam for the glasses.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

More syllabub recipes

Whipped 15Staffordshire 7Lemon 6Birthday 3 See all 113 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes