Skip to main content
Dessert

Sauce for the Plum Pudding or Any Other Boiled or Baked Pudding

A butter, brown sugar, nutmeg, egg white, and wine sauce for plum pudding or other boiled or baked puddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Sauce for the Plum Pudding or Any Other Boiled or Baked Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Beat the brown sugar into the creamed butter until well combined.

  3. Add the egg white and mix well.

  4. Pour in the wine gently while stirring continuously.

  5. Stir until the mixture is cold and thick, resembling salad dressing. Do not let it boil.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Butter
Creamed butter gives the sauce its rich body and fat-based mouthfeel.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and molasses flavour, and dissolves into the creamed butter.
Egg white
Adds protein that helps the sauce thicken and hold together as it cools.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour, and loosens the mixture as it is stirred in.

The step that matters

Pour in the wine gently while stirring continuously. Adding liquid too fast can split an emulsion of butter and egg white, leaving a greasy, grainy sauce. Constant stirring and slow addition keep it smooth and thick as it cools.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Tarragonfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, wine. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes