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Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made with eggs, butter, sugar, milk, and flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 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

Make the base

  1. Mix the egg yolks, pear, flour, and milk in a saucepan.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Flavor to taste.

Cream the butter

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Mix in the sugar and egg yolk.

  3. Simmer slowly for a few minutes, stirring constantly. Flavor to taste.

Finish and serve

  1. Combine the light sugar and butter until light.

  2. Stir in boiling water until dissolved, stirring constantly to maintain lightness.

  3. Add grated nutmeg to taste and serve hot.

  4. Mix sugar with the beaten egg yolk and boiling milk.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg white.

  6. Cream the sugar and butter together. Flavor to taste.

  7. Float the dish in boiling water until heated.

  8. Pour boiling water over it just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pear + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together300 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pear + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, custard-like body.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce holds its consistency when cooked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickening sets into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream to a light texture.
Egg white
Folded in whipped to add lightness and a softer texture.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolk proteins set at moderate temperatures and can scramble if the heat is too high or stirring stops. Constant stirring keeps the custard smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the pear

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pearthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, butter, sugar, nutmeg. 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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