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Dessert

Syllabub

A frothy lemon and sherry dessert made with macaroons, cream, sugar, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Syllabub

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syllabub

  1. In a large bowl, mix the sugar, lemon juice, lemon rind, cinnamon, and wine until the sugar dissolves.

  2. Add a few drops of essence of ratafia and stir.

  3. Whip in the cream until frothy.

  4. Skim the froth from the syllabub and place it on the macaroons.

  5. Continue until all the mixture is frothy.

Assemble and chill

  1. Compactly arrange the macaroons at the bottom of a deep dish.

  2. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours before serving.

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

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sherry + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Lemon + sherrytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Cream
Whipped into a light foam that forms the bulk of the dessert's texture.
Macaroons
Crisp, dry base that soaks up moisture and softens under the syllabub.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves into the wine and lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet, rich cream.
Sherry or madeira
Adds depth and flavour and helps the mixture stay loose before whipping.

The step that matters

Skim the froth as it forms. Cream foams and then collapses if left too long, so froth should be lifted off as it rises. Whipping too far turns cream grainy or butter-like. Lifting froth as it forms gives a light topping that holds on the macaroons.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, sherry, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, sherry, 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.

More syllabub recipes

Whipped 15Staffordshire 7Lemon 6Birthday 3 See all 113 →

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