Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Pudding Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Cream together the sugar and butter in an earthen dish.
Stir in the flour until well combined.
Whip the egg white to stiff peaks and fold it into the mixture.
Quickly pour in the boiling water while stirring rapidly.
Serve
Transfer to a sauce tureen and garnish with essence of lemon or grated nutmeg.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to add richness and a smooth, fat-based body to the sauce.
- Egg white
- Whipped to stiff peaks, it traps air and gives the sauce a light, frothy texture.
- Flour
- Stirred in to thicken the sauce and give it body.
- Fine white sugar
- Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help create a smooth base.
The step that matters
Quickly pour in the boiling water while stirring rapidly. Adding the boiling water quickly and stirring constantly keeps the mixture smooth and evenly dispersed, so the flour starches hydrate and thicken without forming lumps. Pouring slowly or stirring poorly can leave lumps or cause the whipped egg white to deflate.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, flour, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, egg. 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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