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Dessert

Huntington Sauce

A sweet sauce made from molasses, butter, lemon juice or vinegar, and milk with eggs, served with steamed apple pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mackay, L. Gertrude. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Huntington Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil one cup molasses and one and a half tablespoons butter for eight minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and add two tablespoons lemon juice, or if lemon juice is not at hand, add one tablespoon vinegar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

497Calories
15 gProtein
25 gFat
56 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 8 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Puddingnot 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 Mackay, L. Gertrude. [from old catalog]. 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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

Molasses
Provides the dark colour, deep sweetness and body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet molasses and balances its flavour.
Vinegar
Stands in for lemon juice, supplying the same sharp acidity to balance sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the acid off the heat. Remove the molasses from the heat before adding lemon juice or vinegar. Acid added to a hot, actively boiling syrup can be lost or dulled in flavour, so stirring it in off the heat keeps its brightness.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Grapefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, vinegar, milk, egg, butter, apple. 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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