Why it works: Rum and milk work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 967 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓
Light Sweet Sauce for Any Kind of Pudding
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
In a chocolate pot, combine egg yolks, powdered sugar, and liqueur.
Add enough milk or cream to cover the pudding.
Heat over low flame, stirring with a chocolate mill until frothy, but do not let it boil.
Cool and serve
Once frothy, pour into a basin over ice and stir to keep liquid.
Serve the sauce over the pudding when ready.
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.
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Rum + milktop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together967 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
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Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together2,908 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Egg + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the sauce as they gently cook, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily into the egg yolks and liquid.
- Liqueur
- Adds aroma and flavour that gives the sauce its distinctive character.
- Milk or cream
- Provides the liquid base that makes the sauce pourable and adds richness.
The step that matters
Heating without boiling. Over low heat the egg yolks thicken gently, but boiling can scramble them into lumps and curdle the sauce. Stirring keeps the heat even and the texture smooth.
“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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