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Dessert

Sauce for Fig Pudding

A light, sweet sauce made from beaten egg whites, powdered sugar, and sherry, poured over fig pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for Fig Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Stir in the sherry until well combined.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the fig pudding 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.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they give the sauce its light, airy texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily into the whipped whites, helping keep them stable.
Sherry
Adds liquid and a distinct wine flavour that brightens the sweetness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat. Adding sugar slowly lets it dissolve into the whites and stabilise the foam. Dumping it in at once can deflate the foam and leave the sauce runny or grainy.

“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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