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Dessert

Sack Posset, or Jelly

A sweet, creamy jelly made with cream, sugar, eggs, sack, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Sack Posset, or Jelly

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the eggs

  1. Beat the eggs well until light.

  2. Add the sack and beat again.

Make the posset

  1. Heat the mixture on a stove until it is hot but not boiling, stirring in one direction.

  2. Boil the cream with the blade of mace.

  3. Pour the boiling cream into the egg mixture, stirring gently twice.

Set

  1. Cover and let it set in a mold until it jellies.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + macetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,009 recipes
  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + macetop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,096 recipes

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Their proteins coagulate as the mixture heats, thickening it so it can set.
Cream
Provides fat and body, giving the set posset a rich, smooth texture.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the dish and balances the richness of the cream and eggs.
Sack
Adds fortified-wine flavor and aroma to the cream.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling cream into the eggs. Egg proteins set at high heat, so adding very hot cream too quickly can scramble the eggs. Pouring it in and stirring gently keeps the mixture smooth and evenly thickened as it sets.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

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