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Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made from brown sugar, flour, boiling water, butter, vinegar, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Rub together the brown sugar and flour until smooth.

  2. Pour a little boiling water over the mixture while stirring.

  3. Once it boils, add the butter, vinegar, and nutmeg.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Flour and butter 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

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness, molasses flavour, and moisture to the sauce.
Flour
Starch thickens the sauce as it heats in the liquid.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, glossy texture.
Vinegar
Adds a small amount of acidity that brightens and balances the sweetness.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water. Pour the water in slowly while stirring constantly so the flour disperses without lumps. The starch thickens only once the mixture boils, so the sauce needs to reach a full boil to set properly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

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