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Sauce

Pudding Sauce

A sauce made from white wine, brandy, powdered sugar, lemon rind, cinnamon, and melted butter.

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

Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix the white wine, brandy, powdered sugar, lemon rind, and cinnamon in a bowl.

  2. Combine the mixture with an equal amount of very thick melted butter.

  3. Prepare a bottle of this mixture in advance for easy use.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. White wine + brandytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

White wine
Adds acidity and liquid that thins the sauce and lifts the flavour.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth, carrying the other flavours through the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the liquid for a smooth sauce.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, velvety body.

The step that matters

Combine the mixture with the melted butter. The butter must be very thick and melted, not hot or separated. Adding it too hot or too fast can split the fat from the liquid, leaving a greasy, grainy sauce instead of a smooth emulsion.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, brandy, sugar, cinnamon, butter. 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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