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Almond Sauce for Puddings Hot or Cold

A sauce made from soaked almonds, sugar, egg yolks, cream, and maraschino syrup, served hot or cold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Almond Sauce for Puddings Hot or Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the almonds

  1. Soak the almonds in cold water, then boil them.

  2. Strain and rinse the almonds, then rub them in a cloth to remove the skins.

  3. Pound the almonds into a smooth paste with the caster sugar.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix the almond paste with the egg yolks, gradually adding the cream.

  2. Heat the mixture in a saucepan over low heat until it thickens.

  3. Stir in the maraschino syrup.

  4. Pass the sauce through a sieve to remove any lumps.

  5. Keep the sauce warm in a bain marie or serve it cold.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Provide the main flavour and body of the sauce as a smooth paste.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it a rich, smooth texture.
Single cream
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the paste into a pourable sauce.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps form a smooth paste with the almonds.
Maraschino syrup
Adds sweetness and a distinctive cherry-like aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; too much heat scrambles them into lumps, so low heat and steady stirring keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, cream, syrup):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream, syrup. 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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