Why it works: Sugar and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 31% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,581 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Madeira Wine
Ingredients
Directions
Make the mixture
Boil the water and sugar together for 30 minutes.
Skim off any foam that forms.
Allow the mixture to cool.
Add the wine
Add 1 quart of new wine for each gallon of the mixture.
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.
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Moist sugar
- Provides the sweetness and fermentable sugar that the yeast in the wine will convert.
- New wine
- Supplies the yeast and flavor that start fermentation in the sweetened water.
The step that matters
Allow the mixture to cool before adding the wine. Adding wine to a hot mixture can kill the yeast it carries, so fermentation may fail to start. Letting the liquid cool to a warm but not hot temperature keeps the yeast alive.
“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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