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Dessert

Sauce for Plum Pudding

A sauce made from egg yolks, powdered sugar, milk, lemon rind, and brandy, thickened over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the egg yolks, sugar, milk, and grated lemon rind.

  3. Stir over low heat until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in the brandy.

Keep warm and serve

  1. Keep the sauce warm by the side of the fire, stirring occasionally.

  2. Serve in a boat or tureen separately, or pour it 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. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  2. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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 gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Milk
Dilutes the yolks so the custard-style sauce stays fluid and pourable.
Brandy
Adds a warming, aromatic flavour that is stirred in off the heat.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and brandy.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the mixture boils, the proteins curdle and the sauce turns grainy or scrambled. Low heat and constant stirring keep it smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, brandy. 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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