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Sauce

Raisin Sauce

A simple sauce made from raisins, sugar, cornstarch, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raisin Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix cornstarch with sugar in a bowl.

  2. Add boiling water and chopped raisins to the mixture.

  3. Cook over medium heat until thickened.

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. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Raisins
Add sweetness, body and a fruity flavour to the sauce as they soften in the liquid.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body once the starch granules swell in liquid.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, mixed with the cornstarch first, helps keep the starch from clumping.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens once the mixture reaches a simmer and the starch granules swell and gelatinise. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while overheating can break down the thickening power.

“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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