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Sauce

Sauce for German Pudding

A sauce made from egg yolks, sugar, and sherry wine, whisked over low heat until thickened, used for German pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Sauce for German Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Whisk the egg yolks with sugar and sherry wine in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Do not let the mixture get too hot or it will curdle; it should become stiff.

  3. Continue whisking until ready to use.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over your pudding.

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.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set with gentle heat, giving it a rich, stiff body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aroma that balance the sweetness and richness of the yolks.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the yolks while they cook.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and whisk constantly. Egg yolks contain proteins that set at around 160°F; if the mixture gets too hot they scramble and curdle instead of thickening smoothly. Constant whisking spreads heat evenly and keeps the sauce silky.

“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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