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Sauce

Pudding Sauce

A sauce made by thickening water with flour, sweetening, and adding butter, lemon juice or vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Abel, Mary Hinman, b. 1850 · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make 1 pint water into a smooth starch with a heaping tablespoon flour.

  2. Cook 10 minutes, strain if necessary, sweeten to taste and pour it over 1 tablespoon butter and lemon juice or other flavoring.

  3. If lemon is not used, add 1 tablespoon vinegar.

  4. Stir butter and sugar into a cream with the flavoring, then add the starch.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

514Calories
15 gProtein
44 gFat
17 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Abel, Mary Hinman, b. 1850. 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. See the original page.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Lemon + teatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together610 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Milk + teatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together738 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour (in the method)
Thickens the water into a smooth starch that gives the sauce body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright flavor to balance the sweetness.

The step that matters

Make the starch smooth before cooking. Flour clumps when added to hot liquid unless it is first mixed into cool water. Smooth starch thickens evenly, and cooking it for the full time lets the starch granules swell and set the sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, vinegar, cream, milk, egg, tea):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, vinegar, cream, milk, egg, tea. 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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