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Wine Sauce for Plum Pudding

A wine sauce made with butter, brown sugar, flour, boiling water, salt, and brandy for plum pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wine Sauce for Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar until foamy.

  2. Add the flour, beat, and slowly stir in the boiling water and salt.

  3. Boil and stir constantly for 10 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the brandy and serve in a sauce boat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Butter
Creamed with the sugar to form a rich, smooth base for the sauce.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it boils, giving the sauce body.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavour added at the end.

The step that matters

Boil and stir constantly for 10 minutes. Flour only thickens fully when its starch granules swell in boiling liquid. Constant stirring prevents lumps and scorching on the base of the pan, giving a smooth sauce.

“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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