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Punch Sauce

A sweet and alcoholic sauce made with sugar, water, citrus rinds, butter, flour, brandy, wine, rum, and citrus juices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Punch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan.

  2. Add the lemon and orange rinds.

  3. Boil gently for 15 to 20 minutes.

  4. Strain out the rinds.

Finish and serve

  1. Add butter and flour to thicken the sauce.

  2. Stir in brandy, white wine, rum, and the juices from the orange and lemon.

  3. Serve the sauce very hot, but do not allow it to boil after adding the spirits.

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  3. White wine + rumtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together113 recipes

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

  4. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Brandy + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together620 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, once boiled, body to the syrup base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smoother mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Brandy
Adds aromatic depth and alcohol flavour to the finished sauce.
Rum
Contributes aroma and sweet, warm spirit character to the sauce.

The step that matters

Do not boil after adding the spirits. Alcohol evaporates readily when heated, so boiling after adding brandy, wine and rum drives off aroma and sharpens the harsh alcohol taste. Keeping the sauce very hot but below boiling preserves its flavour.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, butter, flour, brandy, white wine, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Pineapplefits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, flour, brandy, white wine, rum. 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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