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Dessert

Boiled Puddings

A sweet sauce made with sugar, citrus zest, butter, flour, and spirits, served hot over puddings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Boiled Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and water.

  2. Add lemon and orange zest.

  3. Heat the mixture until the sugar dissolves.

  4. Simmer for 14 to 20 minutes.

  5. Stir in butter and flour until smooth.

Add the spirits and serve

  1. Remove from heat and add brandy, white wine, and rum.

  2. Do not allow to boil after adding spirits.

  3. Serve the sauce hot.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. White wine + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and body as it dissolves into the syrup base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce and helps it stay smooth.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth, flavouring the sauce once it is off the heat.
Rum
Adds aroma and depth of flavour, added off the heat.

The step that matters

Do not allow to boil after adding spirits. Alcohol evaporates and its aroma fades when boiled, and the flavour turns harsh. Adding the spirits off the heat and keeping the sauce below boiling preserves their aroma and taste.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, flour, brandy, white wine, rum. 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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