Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Hard Sauce for Puddings
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Wash the butter in cold water to remove salt and make it easier to cream.
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Flavor the mixture with grated lemon peel or lemon essence.
Serve
Shape the sauce as desired and serve.
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.
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 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
- Sugar
- Provides sweetness and, when creamed with butter, helps create a smooth, light texture.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and becomes smooth and airy when creamed with sugar.
- Lemon peel
- Adds bright citrus aroma and flavor to the sauce.
The step that matters
Creaming the sugar and butter until smooth. Beating softened butter with sugar traps air and dissolves sugar into the fat, giving a smooth, even texture. Under-creaming leaves grainy or dense sauce, while overworking can make it greasy.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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