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Sauce

Acid Pudding Sauce

A sauce made from sugar, butter, flour, acid fruit juice, nutmeg, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Acid Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix together the sugar, butter, and flour thoroughly.

  2. Add a little vinegar or juice from an acid fruit and a little nutmeg.

  3. Pour in about 2 cups of boiling water and boil for a few minutes.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Flour
Starch thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and adds body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Vinegar or acid fruit juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the richness.

The step that matters

Boil for a few minutes after adding the water. Flour thickens only when its starch granules absorb liquid and swell at a boil. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and can leave a raw, floury taste.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, vinegar. 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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