Skip to main content
Dessert

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd's Sack Posset

A sweet, thickened milk dessert flavored with sack and nutmeg.

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

Why it works: Sherry and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,479 recipes. Both carry 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine, which smells cocoa, roasted. The science ↓

Sir Fleetwood Shepherd's Sack Posset

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Heat sugar and sack in a skillet over flaming coals until the sugar dissolves.

  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs.

  3. Boil the milk and let it cool.

Make the posset

  1. Combine the cooled milk with the egg mixture and the sack mixture.

  2. Cook the combined mixture over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

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. Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Nutmeg and egg 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
Egg proteins set when heated, thickening the liquid into a rich, custard-like body.
Milk
Provides the liquid base and creamy body that the eggs thicken.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the sack.
Sack
Adds its sherry-like flavor and aroma to the custard.

The step that matters

Cook gently while stirring constantly. Egg proteins thicken the custard smoothly at moderate heat but scramble and curdle if the mixture overheats or is left unstirred.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, egg, milk. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes