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Rum Sauce

A sweet, citrusy sauce made with sugar, water, lemon rind, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, brandy, rum, and thickened with arrowroot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Rum Sauce

Why it works: Cinnamon and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Rum Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar, water, lemon rind, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, brandy, and rum. Bring to a simmer.

  2. Once simmering, add arrowroot and stir for a couple of minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the lemon rind and cinnamon before serving hot in a sauceboat.

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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + arrowroottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together242 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Lemon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together553 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Cinnamon + arrowroottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together166 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 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

Arrowroot
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, glossy sauce as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the alcohol and lemon flavour.
Jamaica rum
Contributes the main alcoholic flavour and aroma to the sauce.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma as it steeps in the warm liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the arrowroot. Arrowroot thickens only when the liquid is hot, so it should be added once the mixture is simmering and stirred until it turns clear and glossy. Adding it to cold liquid or leaving it unstirred can cause lumps or a thin sauce.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, brandy, rum, arrowroot):

  1. Apricotfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, butter, vanilla, brandy, rum, arrowroot. 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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