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Dessert

Ale Posset

A creamy ale-based posset made with milk, bread crumbs, egg yolk, butter, ale, sugar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Ale Posset

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the milk, bread crumbs, beaten egg yolk, and butter.

  2. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring until it boils.

  3. Let it simmer for a short time.

  4. Stir in the hot ale, sugar, and grated nutmeg.

  5. Boil the mixture together and serve in a dish.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + nutmegtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,997 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the bread crumbs and egg thicken into a soft custard.
Bread crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the posset body and a soft, thickened texture.
Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture as it heats and adds richness and a smooth texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Ale
Adds a sharp, malty flavour that cuts the richness of the milk and egg.

The step that matters

Stirring until it boils. Egg yolk thickens as it heats, but if the mixture is heated too fast or left unstirred it can scorch on the pan base or curdle. Steady stirring keeps the custard smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Parsleyfits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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