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Sauce

Sauce for Cakes and Puddings

A sauce made from butter, flour, sugar, and water, seasoned with vanilla, mace, or brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.) · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Cakes and Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub butter and flour together.

  2. Add sugar and hot water.

  3. Boil until somewhat thick.

  4. Season with vanilla, mace, or brandy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

606Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
108 gCarbs

Counts 3 of 4 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Macenot 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 Jacqueline Harrison Smith (ed.). 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Flour + macetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,974 recipes

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the sauce its syrupy body.

The step that matters

Boil until somewhat thick. Flour thickens only when it is heated enough for its starch to swell. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while boiling too long makes it stiff as it cools.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar. 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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