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Egg Flip

A sweet, spiced egg mixture cooked with ale and rum or brandy.

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

Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Flip

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a spice mix of nutmeg, ginger, and lemon rind, or rub lemon rind with sugar and grate the spices.

  2. Beat the eggs with the sugar and the spice mix in a jug.

Heat and combine

  1. Heat the ale until just before boiling.

  2. Pour the ale into another jug, then back into the first jug, repeating until smooth.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Nutmeg + rumtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Ginger + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide body and richness, giving the drink its thick, creamy texture.
Moist sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture while balancing the ale's bitterness.
Ale
Forms the liquid base and contributes the main malty flavour.
Old rum or brandy
Adds warming alcohol aroma and depth of flavour.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Ginger
Adds a sharp, aromatic spice note.

The step that matters

Heat the ale until just before boiling. If the ale reaches a full boil, it can scramble the beaten eggs when combined, leaving lumps. Heating it just below boiling keeps the egg mixture smooth and creamy.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, rum. 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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