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Syllabub Under the Cow

A frothy cider and beer dessert flavored with nutmeg and sweetened with sugar, served with warm currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. Combine cider and strong beer in a large punch bowl.

  2. Grate in nutmeg and sweeten to taste.

  3. Milk into the mixture until a strong froth forms.

  4. Let it stand for 1 hour.

Garnish and serve

  1. Wash and prick currants, then warm them by the fire until plump.

  2. Strew 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.

  1. Cider + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together500 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Cider + beertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Beer + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together298 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  4. Nutmeg + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Milk + curranttop 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

Cider
Provides the main liquid base and a light fruity acidity.
Strong beer
Adds bitterness and depth of flavour to the base liquid.
Milk
Creates the froth that gives the drink its light, foamy texture.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice to the drink.

The step that matters

Milking the mixture to a strong froth. Milk must be poured in so it curdles and foams on the surface; pouring too gently or stirring it in fully gives a flat, thin drink rather than a frothy one.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cider, beer, sugar, milk, currant):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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