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Sauce

Sweet Pudding Sauce

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

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. In a butter saucepan, mix sherry or ginger wine, brandy, sugar, lemon peel, and cinnamon.

  2. Add thick melted butter and stir over low heat until it nearly boils.

  3. Serve warm.

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

Sherry or ginger wine
Provides a liquid base and a mellow, fruity aroma that flavours the sauce.
Brandy
Adds warmth and aroma, and its alcohol carries flavour through the sauce.
Lump sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the sharpness of the wine and brandy.
Melted butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Heating the butter in. Stirring over low heat keeps the sauce from scorching and lets the butter emulsify smoothly into the liquid. Stopping just short of a boil avoids the alcohol and butter separating or the sauce turning greasy.

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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