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Flavored Buttermilk

A chilled buttermilk flavored with brandy or wine, sweetened with sugar, colored with raspberry jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Flavored Buttermilk

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Strain the buttermilk and hang it in a cool place for 2-3 days until it drains well.

  2. Transfer the drained buttermilk to a dish.

Flavor and color

  1. Add the brandy or wine and sweeten with loaf sugar.

  2. Color the mixture with raspberry jam and whisk well.

  3. Serve in a glass.

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. Buttermilk + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Brandy + raspberrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-hex-3-en-1-ol (freshly cut grass green and herbaceous notes).

  3. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + raspberrytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,101 recipes

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

  5. Buttermilk + raspberrytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Buttermilk
Forms the thick, tangy base of the drink, which is drained to concentrate it.
Brandy or wine
Adds alcohol and aroma that give the drink its character.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the tangy buttermilk to balance its acidity.
Raspberry jam
Colors the drink and adds fruity flavor and sweetness.

The step that matters

Draining the buttermilk. Hanging the buttermilk for 2-3 days lets whey drain away, leaving a thicker, richer base. Stopping early leaves it watery, so the flavored drink ends up thin.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against buttermilk, brandy, 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.

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