Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Hard Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add flavoring to taste.
Form the mixture into a fancy shape.
Cool and serve with hot pudding.
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.
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Provides sweetness and, creamed with butter, a smooth, soft body to the sauce.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce its smooth, firm texture as it cools.
The step that matters
Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.. Creaming must be thorough so the sugar is evenly distributed through the butter. Under-creamed sugar leaves a gritty texture that a smooth sauce should not have.
“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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