Name: Carolina Syllabub
Ingredients: 2 quarts rich cream; ½ cup Madeira wine; ½ cup brandy; 1 teacup cold water (optional)

Why it works: Cream and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,635 recipes. Both carry 2-heptanol, which smells bitter, floral. The science ↓

Carolina Syllabub

Ingredients

2 quarts rich cream
½ cup Madeira wine
½ cup brandy
1 teacup cold water (optional)

Directions

Sweeten the cream to taste.
Add the Madeira wine and brandy, then let it stand for 30 minutes.
Churn the mixture with a tin churn and skim off the froth.
Place a sieve made of netting over a deep bowl and pile the froth on it.
Fill bowls with the froth from the sieve.
This can stand for 24 hours; return and pump the drip over if needed.
If the froth does not rise well, add the cold water and churn hard.

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.

Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,635 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Madeira wine + brandytop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together120 recipes
Cream + madeira winetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together146 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).