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Sauce

Plum-pudding Sauce

A sweet alcoholic sauce made with sherry, brandy, sugar, butter, and optional lemon peel, garnished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Plum-pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine the Sherry, Brandy (or alternative), and pounded sugar.

  2. Add the grated lemon peel if using.

  3. Stir in the melted butter until well mixed.

  4. Grate nutmeg on top 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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  2. Sherry + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Brandy + buttertop 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, velvety body to the sauce.
Sherry
Adds wine-like depth and acidity that balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Contributes alcohol-based aroma and warmth to the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and softens its sharp alcohol edge.

The step that matters

Stir in the melted butter until well mixed. Butter is fat, so if it is too hot or added too fast it can fail to emulsify and separate, leaving a greasy, grainy sauce. Melted butter should be warm, not sizzling, and stirred steadily so it disperses evenly into the liquid.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sherry, brandy, sugar, butter, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sherry, brandy, sugar, butter, 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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