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Sauce

A Delicious German Pudding-Sauce

A sauce made by dissolving sugar in sherry or Madeira, then mixing with egg yolks and heating until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 ↓

A Delicious German Pudding-Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the sherry or Madeira over low heat without boiling.

  2. Stir the hot mixture into the well-beaten egg yolks.

  3. Whisk the sauce over gentle heat until it thickens and becomes creamy.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sherry + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, 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 gently and give it a creamy, rich body.
Sherry or madeira
Adds aroma and a fortified wine flavour that balances the sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves into the warm wine to form a smooth base.

The step that matters

Whisking the sauce over gentle heat. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set, but if the heat is too high or the sauce is not kept moving, they can scramble and turn grainy. Keep the heat gentle and whisk constantly until the sauce thickens.

“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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