Syllabub is a creamy, sweet dessert, originally from England. It’s made with cream, sugar, citrus juice, usually wine, or some other liquor. Syllabub was popular in the United States during the 18th and early 19th centuries, especially at festive occasions and social gatherings.

It sounds deliciious and would be fun to try and make.

RECIPES BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

SYLLABUB
Take one quart of rich milk or cream, one cup wine, and one-half cup sugar. Put the sugar and wine into a bowl and the milk lukewarm in a separate vessel. When the sugar is dissolved in the wine, pour the milk in, holding it high. Pour it back and forth until it is frothy. Grate nutmeg over it.

WHIPT SYLLABUBS
Take a quart of cream, boil it, and let it stand till cold. Then take a pint of white wine, pare a lemon thin, and steep the peel in the wine two hours before you use it. To this add the juice of a lemon, and as much sugar as will make it very sweet. Put all together into a bowl, and whisk it one way till it is pretty thick.

Fill the glasses and keep it a day before you use it. It will keep good for three or four days. Let the cream be full measure, and the wine rather less.

Another way— To a quart of thick cream put half a pint of sack,* the juice of two Seville oranges or lemons, grate the peel of two lemons, and add half a pound of double-refined sugar* well pounded. Mix a little sack with sugar, and put it into some of the glasses, and red wine and sugar into others, the rest fill with syllabub only. Then whisk your cream up very well, take off the froth with a spoon, and fill the glasses carefully, as full as they will hold. Observe, that this sort must not be made long before they are used.

*sack – a sweet wine fortified with brandy (known today as sherry).
*double-refined sugar – sugar that had been refined a second time to increase the level of purity and the whiteness.

SOLID SYLLABUBS
Mix a quart of thick raw cream, one pound of refined sugar, and a pint and a half of fine raisin wine, in a deep pan. Add the grated peel and the juice of three lemons. Beat or whisk it one way, half an hour; then put it on a sieve with a piece of thin muslin laid smooth in the shallow end, till the next day. Put it in glasses. It will keep good in a cool place ten days.

SOMERSETSHIRE SYLLABUB
Put into a large china bowl a pint of port, a pint of sherry, or other white wine, and sugar to taste. Pour in milk to fill the bowl. In twenty minutes’ time, cover it pretty high with clouted cream. Grate nutmeg over it, add pounded cinnamon, and nonpareil comfits.

STAFFORDSHIRE SYLLABUB
Put into a bowl a pint of cider and a glass of brandy, with sugar and nutmeg. Pour into it some warm milk from a large tea-pot, held up high.

SYLLABUB
Put a pint of cider and a bottle of strong beer into a large punch bowl. Grate in a nutmeg and sweeten it. Put in as much new milk from the cow as will make a strong froth, and let it stand an hour. Clean and wash some currants. Make them plump before the fire, then strew* them over the syllabub, and it will be fit for use. 

A good imitation of this may be made by those who do not keep cows, by pouring new milk out of a tea-pot into the cider and beer, or wine.

A FINE SYLLABUB
Make your syllabub either of wine or cider, (if cider, put a spoonful of brandy in). Sweeten it and grate in some nutmeg. Then pour milk into the liquor till you have a fine light curd. Pour over it one-half to one pint of good cream, according to the quantity of syllabub you make. You may send it in the basin it was made in, or put it into custard-cups, and tea-spoons with it on a salver.

EVERLASTING SYLLABUBS
To make very fine syllabubs. Take a quart and half a pint of cream, a pint of Rhenish, and half a pint of sack. Grate the rind of three lemons into the cream, with near a pound of double-refined sugar. Squeeze the juice of three lemons into the wine, and put it to the cream. Then beat all together with a whisk half an hour. Take it up together with a spoon, and fill the glasses. It is best at three or four days old, and will keep good nine or ten days. 

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