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Dessert

Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made from butter, powdered sugar, wine, water, and nutmeg or lemon essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the butter until frothy.

  2. Boil the white wine and water together.

Make and serve the sauce

  1. Pour the boiling mixture over the butter and sugar, stirring briskly.

  2. Add grated nutmeg or essence of lemon to the sauce dish.

  3. Serve immediately.

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 + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. White wine + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,659 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 23,364 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
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Fine powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves quickly into the hot liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and a light, fruity flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling mixture over the butter and sugar. Stirring briskly while the liquid is hot helps the fine sugar dissolve and the melting butter blend into a smooth sauce. Without enough agitation, the sauce can turn grainy or greasy, and it may separate as it cools, which is why it is served immediately.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, white wine. 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.

More pudding sauce recipes

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