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How to Prepare Caudle

A hot ale-based porridge made with groats, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, sugar, and spirit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

How to Prepare Caudle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caudle

  1. Mix the groats with cold ale.

  2. Pour this mixture into a stewpan with hot ale.

  3. Add the ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

  4. Stir the caudle over the fire while gently boiling for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain off the spices into a jug.

  2. Add sugar and rum or brandy to taste.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + rumtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together508 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Robinson's patent groats
Thickens the ale as its starch cooks, giving the caudle a porridge-like body.
Ale
Provides the liquid base and its malty flavour for the whole drink.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that flavours the spiced ale.
Cloves
Adds pungent spice aroma that infuses the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Stir while gently boiling. Groat starch must be stirred as it heats or it can clump and scorch on the bottom. Gentle boiling keeps it smooth and thickened without boiling over or burning.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ginger, cinnamon, sugar, rum):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against ginger, cinnamon, sugar, 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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