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Drink

Whipped Syllabubs

A chilled alcoholic drink made with cream, sherry, brandy, lemon juice, nutmeg, and sugar, topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Whipped Syllabubs

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the cream, sherry, brandy, lemon juice, nutmeg, and pounded sugar together.

  2. Pour the mixture into glasses.

  3. Top each glass with a little whipped cream, made as for trifle.

  4. For a solid syllabub, whisk the mixture to a stiff froth and serve without whipped cream on top.

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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the body of the drink and, when whipped, gives a light, thick texture.
Sherry
Adds liquid and flavour, and its acidity helps thicken the cream.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the sweetness and helps the cream thicken.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the mixture and balances the acidity of the lemon and sherry.

The step that matters

Whisking the solid syllabub to a stiff froth. Whisking incorporates air into the cream and the acid in the sherry and lemon helps it thicken. Under-whisking leaves it runny, while over-whisking can turn the cream grainy and separate it.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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