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Dessert

Pudding Sauce

A cold sauce made from beaten eggs, sugar, butter, and flavored with sherry or vanilla, served with plum pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the eggs and sugar together until stiff and frothy.

  2. Place the tin cup in a pan of boiling water on the stove, stirring constantly until it boils.

Finish and serve

  1. In a tureen, add the butter and pour the egg mixture over it.

  2. Flavor with sherry, vanilla, or both.

  3. Stir well before serving.

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. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Walnut + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 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

Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a smooth, body-rich texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten eggs hold a stiff, frothy structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the egg mixture while stirring constantly. Egg proteins set gently when heated slowly and evenly, thickening the sauce. If the mixture gets too hot or is left unstirred, the eggs can scramble and turn grainy.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Cocoafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, sherry. 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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