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Sauce

Imaple Sugar Sauce

A sweet sauce made from maple sugar, water, butter, flour, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Imaple Sugar Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the maple sugar in a small cup of water over low heat.

  2. Let it simmer and remove any scum.

Finish and serve

  1. Mix the butter with the flour and nutmeg, then add to the mixture.

  2. Boil for a few moments and serve.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Maple sugar
Provides the main sweetness and maple flavor of the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
All-purpose flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Grated nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Boil after adding the butter and flour. Flour needs heat to swell and thicken the sauce fully. Too little boiling leaves the sauce thin and tasting of raw flour.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour. 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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