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Dessert

Egg Flip

Egg Flip is a sweet custard made with eggs, sugar, spices, Madeira wine, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Egg Flip

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Egg Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mull the wine, spices, and sugar together.

  2. Add boiling water to the mixture.

Make the flip

  1. Whisk the eggs in a punch bowl until frothy.

  2. Gradually pour in the mulled wine while stirring continuously.

  3. Serve in tumblers and enjoy.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Whisked until frothy, they add body and a light, foamy texture to the drink.
Sugar
Sweetens the drink and balances the acidity of the wine.
Madeira or light wine
Provides the main liquid and flavor base of the drink.

The step that matters

Gradually pour in the mulled wine while stirring continuously. Adding hot liquid to beaten eggs too quickly can scramble them and cause curdling. Pouring slowly while stirring gently tempers the eggs, bringing them up in temperature evenly so they blend smoothly into the drink.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Clovethe original
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, wine, 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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