Skip to main content
Sauce

Creamy Sauce for Christmas Pudding

A creamy sauce made with butter, powdered sugar, sherry wine, and cream, cooked over a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Creamy Sauce for Christmas Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Once smooth and light, slowly mix in the sherry wine.

  4. Add the cream a little at a time, beating well.

  5. Place the mixture in a double boiler and stir over heat until the sauce is smooth and creamy.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides fat and richness, and creams with sugar to give the sauce a smooth, light body.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the creamed butter for a smooth texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the sauce into a pourable consistency.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a mild acidity that balances the sweetness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating over a double boiler. Gentle indirect heat warms the butter and cream without overheating them. Direct high heat can cause the dairy to separate or scorch, leaving the sauce grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

“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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes