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Nutmeg Syrup

A syrup made by boiling nutmegs, sugar, egg, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,311 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Nutmeg Syrup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the flavouring

  1. Pound the nutmegs.

  2. Boil the nutmegs in hot water for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Make the syrup

  1. Add sifted sugar and a beaten egg mixed with a little cold water to the strained liquid.

  2. Heat over a fire and skim until perfectly clean and reduced to a syrup.

  3. Once cold, mix in the brandy.

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. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

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

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

Nutmegs
Provide the main spice flavour and aroma, extracted into the hot water.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and the thick body of the syrup as the liquid reduces.
Egg
Helps collect impurities during heating so they can be skimmed off, leaving a clearer syrup.
Brandy
Adds alcohol-based aroma and warmth, added after cooling so it is not boiled off.

The step that matters

Heating and skimming until perfectly clean. Skimming removes the impurities the egg gathers as the liquid heats, and reducing concentrates the sugar into syrup. Stopping too early leaves cloudiness or a thin syrup. Adding the brandy only once cold keeps its aroma from evaporating.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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