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Sauce

Vemson Sauce

A sweet sauce made with brown sugar, currant jelly, claret wine or tomato catsup, mace, cinnamon, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,611 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Vemson Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine brown sugar, currant jelly, claret wine (or tomato catsup), ground mace, ground cinnamon, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture together until well combined.

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. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Currant + macetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,791 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Wine + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

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

  5. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a deep, caramel-like body to the sauce.
Currant jelly
Provides fruity tartness and sweetness, and its pectin helps the sauce thicken.
Claret wine
Adds acidity and fruity depth that balances the sweetness.
Butter
Contributes fat for richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Ground mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour.
Ground cinnamon
Adds a warm, sweet aroma that rounds out the spices.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture together until well combined. Sugar must fully dissolve and the butter must emulsify into the liquid, or the sauce can separate or scorch on the bottom of the pot. Stirring while it heats keeps the sugar and fat evenly distributed.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, currant, wine, cinnamon, butter. 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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