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Dessert

Plum Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made by simmering sugar, water, spices, lemon rind, sherry, and optional brandy, finished with butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Plum Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Plum Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Pour 2 cups of water over 4 cups of sugar in a pot.

  2. Add a few cloves, several blades of mace in a muslin bag, and the thin rind of 2 lemons.

  3. Simmer for 4 to 5 hours until the sauce is a rich golden color, darker than honey.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat, take out the spices and lemon rind.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of sherry and, if desired, ½ cup of brandy.

  3. Reheat portions of the sauce as needed, adding a lump of butter and a little more wine.

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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Caramelizes during long simmering to give the sauce its golden color and sweetness.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a winey aroma that balances the sweetness of the sugar.
Butter
Adds fat and richness when the sauce is reheated.

The step that matters

Simmering for 4 to 5 hours. The sugar must cook slowly until it caramelizes to a rich golden color. Heating too fast can scorch it and make the sauce bitter, while stopping too early leaves it pale and thin in flavor.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, lemon, sherry, brandy, butter. 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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