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 ↓
White Wine Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Combine the white wine, water, flour, and eggs in a pot.
Stir well and sweeten to taste.
Add lemon slices and cinnamon.
Heat over medium-high heat, beating constantly until it reaches a boil.
Serve
Strain the soup and serve immediately or chilled with wafers.
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.
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,832 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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 soup as they cook and give it a rich, silky body.
- Flour
- Helps thicken the liquid and gives it a smoother, more stable texture.
- White wine
- Provides the main liquid and a bright, acidic flavor base.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the soup and balances the acidity of the wine and lemon.
The step that matters
Beating constantly while heating. Eggs can scramble if they touch overly hot spots or the mixture boils too hard without constant stirring. Beating keeps the heat even so the eggs thicken the soup smoothly rather than curdling.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, flour, egg, sugar, cinnamon):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
- Figfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, flour, egg, sugar, cinnamon. 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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