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Dessert

Plum-pudding Sauce

A sauce made from butter, sugar, egg yolks, wine, brandy, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Wine and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,427 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Plum-pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Add the wine and brandy, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Pour in the boiling water and simmer the mixture, but do not let it boil.

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. Wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

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

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the alcohol.
Egg yolks
Emulsify the butter and thicken the sauce as they gently warm.
Wine
Adds acidity and fruity flavour to the sauce.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth and warmth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Simmer without boiling. Egg yolk proteins thicken with gentle heat but scramble and curdle when overheated. Keeping the sauce just below a boil lets it thicken smoothly and stay silky.

“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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