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Wine Sauce for Plum Pudding

A wine-based sauce made with butter, brown sugar, flour, water, salt, wine or brandy, and caramel for coloring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wine Sauce for Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar until foamy.

  2. Add the flour and mix well.

  3. Slowly stir in the boiling water and salt.

  4. Boil while stirring constantly for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the wine or brandy and serve hot in a sauce-boat.

  2. Color with caramel as desired.

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + winetop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, buttery flavor to the sauce.
Light brown sugar
Provides sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavor.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it boils.
Wine or brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, alcoholic flavor note at the end.

The step that matters

Boil while stirring constantly for 10 minutes. Flour starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and stays there. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the bottom of the pan, giving a smooth, evenly thickened sauce.

“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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