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Flip

A sweet, spiced flip made with ale, eggs, sugar, nutmeg or ginger, and rum or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Flip

Why it works: Nutmeg and rum work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 646 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Flip

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Warm the Ale in a pot.

  2. In a bowl, beat the Eggs with the Sugar and grated Nutmeg or Ginger.

  3. When the Ale is near boiling, combine it with the Egg mixture and stir well.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  3. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Thicken as they heat, giving the drink a smooth, body-rich texture.
Ale
Forms the liquid base and carries the malty flavour of the drink.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and a rich, mellow balance to the sharp ale.
Nutmeg or ginger
Adds warm, spiced aroma to the drink.

The step that matters

Combining the hot ale with the eggs. Eggs scramble when they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Stirring the mixture well as the ale is added helps spread the heat evenly so the eggs blend smoothly instead of curdling.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, rum):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, rum. 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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