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Sauce for Plum Pudding

A sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, egg, and wine, served with plum pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Sauce for Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

  3. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and heat on the stove, stirring until melted.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in the wine.

  2. Serve immediately.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the sauce its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture as it melts.
Egg
Adds richness and emulsifies the fat, helping the sauce hold together smoothly.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweet, rich base.

The step that matters

Heat gently while stirring. Egg proteins set at higher temperatures, so overheating can scramble the egg and leave the sauce grainy. Gentle heat with constant stirring melts the butter and keeps the mixture 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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