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Sauce

Pudding Sauce

A creamy sauce made with milk, butter, sugar, egg, sherry, nutmeg, and cornstarch.

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

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the components

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk and cornstarch, and bring to a boil.

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

  3. Beat the egg and mix it into the butter and sugar mixture.

Combine and serve

  1. Once the milk is boiling, mix it with the egg mixture and stir well.

  2. Serve immediately, flavored with 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sauce thickens and carries flavor in.
Cornstarch
Thickens the hot milk into a smooth, glossy sauce as its starch swells.
Egg
Adds richness and body, and its proteins help set the sauce as it heats.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smooth texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily into the butter for a smooth base.

The step that matters

Mixing the boiling milk into the egg mixture. Adding very hot milk to the egg too quickly can scramble the egg proteins. Pour it in slowly while stirring constantly so the egg warms gradually and the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, egg, sugar, sherry, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, sugar, sherry, wine. 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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