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Sauce

German Pudding Sauce

A sauce made by dissolving sugar in white wine, then adding beaten egg yolks and whisking until frothy, served hot over pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

German Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the white wine over heat.

  2. Once hot, stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Whisk until frothy, keeping the saucepan off the direct heat to prevent curdling.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce hot over the pudding.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + white winetop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,586 recipes

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

  3. White wine + eggtop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the acidity of the wine.
White wine
Provides the liquid base and a light acidic, fruity flavor.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and give it richness and a smooth body.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg yolks off direct heat. Egg yolks set and curdle when overheated, turning the sauce grainy. Keeping the pan off direct heat and whisking constantly lets the yolks thicken gently into a smooth 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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