Name: Caudle-sauce for Plum-budding
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; ⅓ cup sherry; ¼ cup brandy or rum; 2 teaspoons sugar; 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel; ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Caudle-sauce for Plum-budding

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter in a saucepan.
Stir in the sherry, brandy or rum, sugar, grated lemon peel, and nutmeg.
Do not let the mixture boil after adding the spirits.

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.

Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,318 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,209 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,505 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,311 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sherry: Adds liquid and fruity, nutty flavor to the sauce.
Brandy or rum: Adds aromatic depth and warmth to the sauce.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the spirits.

The step that matters

Do not let the mixture boil after adding the spirits. Boiling drives off the alcohol, which carries much of the sauce's aroma, so the flavor is lost.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sherry, brandy, sugar, nutmeg):

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Apricotfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sherry, brandy, sugar, nutmeg. 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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Caudle-sauce for Plum-budding