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Dessert

Pudding Sauce

A sweet sauce made with eggs, sugar, milk, gelatin, and optional chocolate, served over ice and salted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Pudding Sauce

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard base

  1. Beat the egg yolks and the egg whites.

  2. Mix in ⅔ cup sugar.

  3. Scald ½ cup milk and pour it into the mixture. Stir and flavor.

Prepare the gelatin

  1. Soak ⅓ box gelatin in 1 cup milk for 30 minutes.

  2. Heat the milk and gelatin mixture until dissolved.

Freeze

  1. In a freezer, combine 4 beaten eggs, 1 quart cream, and 1½ cups sugar.

  2. Add the dissolved mixture to the freezer.

  3. Fill the freezer with scalded milk to within 4 inches of the top. Flavor as desired.

  4. Break ice into small pieces using a bag and a mallet.

  5. Surround the freezer with ice and cover it with coarse salt.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + chocolatetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Gelatin + creamtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sugar + gelatintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Yolks and beaten eggs thicken the custard as they set with gentle heat.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the frozen sauce a smooth, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and also softens the texture of the frozen mixture.
Gelatin
Sets with the milk to give body and help the frozen sauce hold a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Surround the freezer with ice and cover it with coarse salt. Salt lowers the melting point of the ice, letting the brine get colder than ice alone so the custard freezes. Too little salt leaves the mixture soft or unfrozen.

“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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