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Dessert

Sweet Pudding Sauce

A warm sauce made with sherry or ginger wine, brandy, sugar, lemon peel, cinnamon, and butter, served over pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sweet Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sherry or ginger wine, brandy, sugar, lemon peel, and cinnamon in a saucepan.

  2. Add melted butter and stir over low heat until nearly boiling.

  3. Serve warm over 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. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

Butter
Melts into the liquid to enrich the sauce and give it a smooth, rich body.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the sharpness of the alcohol.
Brandy
Adds warmth and aroma while thinning the sauce.
Sherry or ginger wine
Contributes body, flavor, and a mild sweetness to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stir over low heat until nearly boiling. Alcohol vaporizes and can flare up near a boil, and butter can separate or scorch if overheated. Gentle heat keeps the sauce smooth and warm without boiling off the spirits.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, 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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