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Another Way to Make Milk Punch

A cold milk punch made with sugar, lemon juice, brandy, water, lemon peel, and boiling milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Another Way to Make Milk Punch

Ingredients

Directions

Make the punch base

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the strained juice of the lemons.

  2. Once settled, add the brandy, cold water, and lemon peel.

  3. Pour the boiling milk over the mixture.

Rest and strain

  1. Cover tightly and let it stand for 24 hours.

  2. Skim off any impurities and strain through a thick jelly bag.

Bottle

  1. Bottle the mixture for immediate use or let it improve by keeping.

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 + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Refined sugar
Provides sweetness that balances the sharp acidity of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavour, and its acid helps curdle the milk for clarifying.
Brandy
Carries the aroma and spirit strength that preserves the punch.
Milk
Softens the harshness of the spirit and, once curdled, carries impurities out when strained.
Lemon peel
Contributes aromatic oils that add fragrance and citrus character.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling milk over the mixture. Hot milk meeting the acidic lemon mixture curdles the milk, which traps impurities. Pouring too slowly or letting it cool first gives a cloudy result that does not clarify well when strained.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, milk. 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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