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Sauce

Maple Sauce

A thickened sauce made from maple syrup, sugar, butter, flour, and water.

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

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Maple Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a saucepan, combine maple syrup, granulated sugar, and butter.

  2. Boil the mixture until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water.

Thicken and finish

  1. In a small bowl, smooth the flour with a little warm water.

  2. Add the flour mixture to the hot water and stir until combined.

  3. Pour the hot water mixture into the syrup mixture and cook until it thickens.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Maple syrup + sugartop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,252 recipes

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

  4. Maple syrup + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Maple syrup
Provides the main sweet maple flavour and the liquid base of the sauce.
Granulated sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the syrup reach the soft ball stage when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it body.

The step that matters

Boil to the soft ball stage. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugars. Stopping too early leaves the sauce thin, while going too far makes it firm and sticky. The cold water test shows when the sugar concentration is right.

“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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