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Dessert

Very Superior Whipped Syllabubs

A frothy dessert drink made with sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, sherry, brandy, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Very Superior Whipped Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Weigh the sugar.

  2. Rasp the rinds of the lemons into the sugar.

  3. Pound or roll the mixture to a powder.

  4. Place the powdered mixture in a bowl.

Make the syllabub

  1. Add the strained lemon juice, sherry, and brandy to the bowl.

  2. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.

  3. Add the cream.

  4. Whisk the mixture well.

  5. Remove the froth as it rises.

  6. Pour the syllabub into glasses.

  7. Refrigerate for up to several days.

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 + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Fine sugar
Sweetens the drink and dissolves into the liquid to balance the lemon's acidity.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and, with the cream, helps thicken the mixture.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a fortified wine flavour that complements the lemon.
Brandy
Adds liquid and aroma, lending warmth and depth to the flavour.
Cream
Provides fat and structure; whisking traps air so the cream thickens into a light foam.

The step that matters

Whisk the mixture well. The cream must be whipped enough to trap air and hold a foam, but the acid from the lemon and alcohol can curdle or thin the cream if mixed poorly, so the whisking should be steady and attentive.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, sherry, brandy, cream. 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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