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Punch Sauce for Sweet Puddings

A punch sauce made with sugar, water, lemon and orange rind, thickened with butter and flour, flavored with brandy, white wine, rum, and citrus juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Punch Sauce for Sweet Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine two ounces of sugar and a quarter pint of water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the rind of half a small lemon and somewhat less orange peel.

  3. Boil very gently for fifteen to twenty minutes.

  4. Strain out the rinds.

Thicken and flavour

  1. Thicken the sauce with an ounce and a half of butter and nearly a teaspoonful of flour.

  2. Add a half-glass of brandy, the same amount of white wine, and two-thirds of a glass of rum.

  3. Stir in the juice of half an orange and rather less lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve the sauce very hot, but do not allow it to boil after the spirits are stirred in.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

504Calories
13 gProtein
1 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 2 of 3 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 2 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
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 Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and body to the syrup base.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Rum (in the method)
Contributes aroma and a warm, spirited flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Do not let the sauce boil after the spirits go in. Boiling drives off alcohol and its volatile aroma compounds, so the brandy, wine and rum flavour fades. Keeping the sauce just below a boil preserves the aroma.

“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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