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Egg Wine

A warm drink made with lemon, sugar, cinnamon, white wine, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Egg Wine

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Egg Wine

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rasp the yellow rind of the lemon and juice it.

Make the wine

  1. In a casserole, combine the lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon, white wine, and beaten eggs.

  2. Whisk the mixture over low heat until it is scalding hot, but do not let it boil.

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 + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  4. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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
Thicken the warm wine mixture and give it a creamy, custard-like body as they set gently with heat.
White sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon juice and wine.
Lemon
Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma from its juice and rind.
White wine
Forms the liquid base and contributes its own acidity and flavour.

The step that matters

Whisk over low heat without boiling. Beaten eggs can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat, stirred constantly, lets them thicken smoothly while the mixture reaches scalding temperature without boiling.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Tarragonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Cinnamonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, sugar, white 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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