Name: A Birthdat Syllabub
Ingredients: ½ pound sugar, broken small; juice of 2 fresh lemons; 1 pint port wine; 1 pint sherry; ½ pint brandy; 1 nutmeg, grated; 2 quarts milk

Why it works: Port wine and sherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 132 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

A Birthdat Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the base

In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon juice, stirring well.
Add the port wine, sherry, and brandy to the mixture.
Grate in the nutmeg.

Make the curd

Place the bowl in a cowl to fill it with milk.

Serve

To serve, place a portion of the curd into each glass, fill with whey, and top with a little rich cream.

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.

Port wine + sherrytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together132 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).
Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Port wine + brandytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Sherry + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,479 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Lemon juice: Its acidity curdles the milk, separating it into curd and whey.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Milk: Forms the curd when it is curdled by the acid in the mixture.
Port wine: Adds body and rich, fruity flavour to the curd.
Sherry: Adds depth and a dry, nutty flavour to the curd.
Nutmeg: Adds warm aroma to the finished curd.

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, port wine, sherry, brandy, nutmeg, milk. 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.