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Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made with eggs, sugar, butter, and milk, flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and milk.

  2. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened, then flavor to taste.

Make the butter sauce

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then mix in the brown sugar and egg yolk.

  2. Simmer slowly for a few minutes, stirring constantly, then flavor to taste.

Finish the sauce

  1. Combine the light brown sugar and butter until light.

  2. Stir into the boiling water until dissolved, stirring constantly.

  3. Add grated nutmeg to taste and serve hot.

  4. Mix the sugar and egg yolk well.

  5. Add boiling milk and fold in the beaten egg white.

  6. Cream the sugar and butter together, then flavor to taste.

Heat and serve

  1. Float the dish in boiling water until heated.

  2. Pour boiling water over it just 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat and add richness.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture and give it body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base and adds creaminess.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and a caramel-like flavor.
Egg white
Folded in whipped to add lightness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks thicken as they heat but can curdle or scramble if they get too hot or sit still. Constant stirring spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, milk, 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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