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Sauce

White Sauce for Puddings

A lemon-flavored white sauce made from condensed milk, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Sauce for Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the lemon peel to the condensed milk and simmer until the flavor is strong.

  2. In a separate bowl, mix the butter and flour until smooth.

  3. Add the butter-flour mixture to the simmering milk and boil until the sauce thickens.

  4. Remove the lemon peel before serving.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Condensed milk + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together410 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Condensed milk + buttertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together711 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Condensed milk
Forms the sauce base and provides sweetness and body as it thickens.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it structure and body.
Lemon peel
Infuses the milk with aromatic citrus oils for a bright, fragrant flavor.

The step that matters

Boiling the butter-flour mixture into the milk. Flour only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil, as starch granules swell and gelatinize. Adding the butter-flour paste to hot milk without stirring can cause lumps, so it should be whisked in smoothly before boiling.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (condensed milk, butter, flour):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against condensed milk, butter, flour. 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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