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Sauce

Plain Sauce for Puddings

A simple sauce made from sugars, flour, butter, water, cream, and optional flavorings for puddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plain Sauce for Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the flour with the sugars.

  2. Add the butter and boiling water.

  3. Bring to a boil.

  4. Slowly stir in the cream.

  5. Flavor with vanilla, nutmeg, sherry, or whisky.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Dark-brown sugar
Adds moisture and a deep caramel sweetness to the sauce.
Granulated sugar
Provides sweetness and helps give the sauce its body as it dissolves.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds richness and softens the sauce's flavor and texture.

The step that matters

Slowly stir in the cream. Adding cream gradually while stirring keeps it evenly blended into the hot sauce. Pouring it in quickly can cause uneven texture or curdling.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Coconutfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

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