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Boiled Puddings

A warm sauce made with rum, orange and lemon juices, sugar, water, rinds, butter, flour, brandy, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon 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. Combine rum, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, and water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the lemon and orange rind and heat the mixture for 14 to 20 minutes.

  3. Stir in the butter and flour until smooth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the brandy and white wine, stirring gently.

  2. Serve the sauce hot, but do not allow it to 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.

  1. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Rum + brandytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. Rum + white winetop 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
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the citrus and spirits.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the sauce becomes smooth and lightly body-rich.
Brandy
Contributes aromatic depth and warmth to the finished sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and fruity aroma that lift the flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Do not boil after adding the spirits. Alcohol evaporates quickly when heated, so boiling after adding brandy and wine drives off much of the aroma and can leave the sauce harsh. Gentle heat keeps the aromatics intact.

Swap the orange

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

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

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