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Dessert

Ivhip Syllabub

A dessert of whipped cream, sweet wine, brandy, lemon juice, nutmeg, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ivhip Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a bowl, combine the heavy cream, sweet wine, brandy, lemon juice, grated nutmeg, and sugar.

  2. Whip the mixture until it is light and fluffy.

Serve

  1. Nearly fill serving glasses with the mixture.

  2. Top each glass with a spoonful of the whipped mixture.

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

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

  2. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Heavy cream
Whips into a light, airy foam that forms the body of the dessert.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and helps stabilise the whipped foam.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the cream and balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour, and its alcohol and acid thicken the wine-cream mixture slightly.
Sweet wine
Adds sweetness, fruit flavour and liquid to the cream base.

The step that matters

Whip the mixture until light and fluffy. Cream whips best when cold and stops just short of stiff peaks; overwhipping turns it grainy and can cause it to separate. Acid from the lemon and alcohol can also slow thickening, so whipping may take longer than expected.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, wine, brandy, nutmeg, 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.

More syllabub recipes

Whipped 15Staffordshire 7Lemon 6Birthday 3 See all 113 →

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