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Sauce

Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, egg yolks, cornstarch, boiling water, and wine or brandy.

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

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light.

  2. Add the egg yolks and cornstarch, mixing well.

  3. Gradually stir in boiling water until the mixture reaches a thick cream consistency.

  4. Add wine or brandy to taste.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, creamed with butter, helps it turn light and smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsifying power, helping the sauce stay smooth and blended.
Cornstarch or arrowroot
Thickens the sauce once heated in liquid, giving it body.

The step that matters

Stirring in the boiling water. Starch thickens only when it is heated in liquid, and it clumps if added too fast. Pouring the boiling water in gradually while stirring disperses the starch and yolks evenly, giving a smooth, thick cream instead of lumps.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

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

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