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Sauce

Plain Pudding Sauce

A simple sauce made with sugar, vinegar, butter, flour, and boiling water, finished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Plain Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the sugar, vinegar, butter, and flour until well combined.

  2. Pour the boiling water over the mixture and stir.

  3. Boil for 5 minutes, then sprinkle with nutmeg 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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, tangy flavour.
Butter
Adds fat, which gives the sauce richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Flour
Its starch thickens the liquid as it heats and swells in the boiling water.

The step that matters

Boiling after adding the water. Flour must be fully mixed in and then kept boiling for the starch granules to swell and thicken the liquid. Boiling only briefly or stirring poorly can leave the sauce thin or lumpy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, butter, flour. 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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