Name: A Birthday 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; rich cream, for serving

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 Birthday Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

Combine the sugar and lemon juice in a large bowl, stirring well.
Add the port wine, sherry, and brandy to the mixture.
Grate in the nutmeg.
Mix the mixture until it is full.

Serve

Place a portion of the curd in each glass.
Fill each glass with whey.
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).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar: Adds sweetness that balances the acidity of the lemon juice and the wine.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the drink and balances the sweetness.
Port wine: Adds body, fruity depth and alcohol to the drink.
Sherry: Adds dry, nutty flavour and alcohol to the drink.
Brandy: Adds warmth and alcohol, deepening the flavour of the drink.
Nutmeg: Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

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