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Dessert

Caramel Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, water, lemon rind, cinnamon, wine or brandy, served over pudding.

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

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the caramel

  1. Combine 4 tablespoons white sugar and 1 tablespoon water in a saucepan.

  2. Stir constantly over medium heat for 3-4 minutes until the water evaporates.

  3. Watch the mixture carefully until it turns a delicate brown color.

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 6 ounces sugar, lemon rind, stick cinnamon, and 1 pint cold water in another saucepan.

  2. Bring to a boil gradually.

  3. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Add ⅓ cup wine or ¼ cup brandy.

Combine and serve

  1. Quickly strain the liquid into the caramel mixture and mix thoroughly.

  2. Serve the sauce with 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.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Lemon + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Cinnamon + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

White sugar
Melts and browns to form the caramel flavour and colour of the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the infused liquid and gives the sauce its body.
Wine or brandy
Adds aroma and a sharp, complex flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Watching the caramel colour. Sugar goes from pale gold to dark and bitter within seconds once it starts to brown, so it should be pulled off the heat as soon as it reaches a delicate brown colour.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, wine):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, 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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