Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Pudding Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.
Add your choice of flavoring.
Pour in boiling water while stirring until the sugar is dissolved.
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.
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.
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, once dissolved in the hot water, gives the sauce its smooth body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and beaten with sugar it creates a creamy texture.
- Boiling water
- Supplies the liquid and its heat dissolves the sugar into a pourable sauce.
The step that matters
Pouring in the boiling water while stirring. Sugar dissolves fully only when it has enough hot liquid and is stirred. Adding the water too fast or skipping the stirring can leave undissolved sugar grains, which make the sauce gritty instead of smooth.
“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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