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Dessert

Vine Whisked or Whipped Syllabub

A frothy dessert made from cream, wine, citrus, brandy, and sugar, topped with grated nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Vine Whisked or Whipped Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. Combine the cream, mountain wine, lemon juice, orange juice, brandy, orange-flower water, and sugar to taste in a large bowl.

  2. Whisk or whip the mixture until frothy.

Drain and serve

  1. As the froth rises, spoon it off and place it on an inverted sieve to drain.

  2. If the froth does not rise well, add the egg whites and continue whisking.

  3. Spoon a few tablespoons of the liquid into syllabub glasses, grate nutmeg on top, and fill with the froth.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Whips into a light froth that forms the body of the syllabub.
Mountain wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the base, and its liquid sits beneath the froth.
Brandy
Adds alcoholic warmth and aroma to the flavour of the dish.
Egg whites
Help the mixture foam and hold air when the froth does not rise well.

The step that matters

Spooning off the froth as it rises. Cream froth collects air as it forms, and if it is left too long it can over-whip and collapse. Removing it promptly and letting it drain on a sieve keeps it light and stable.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raspberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, wine, lemon, brandy, sugar, nutmeg, 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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