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Dessert

Sauce for Plum-Pudding

A sweet sauce made with sugar, butter, egg yolks, wine or brandy, salt, and hot cream or milk, thickened over low heat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Sauce for Plum-Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter until light and creamy.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg yolks and mix well.

  3. Stir in the wine or brandy, salt, and hot cream or milk.

  4. Beat the mixture well and place it in a saucepan over low heat.

  5. Stir until the sauce thickens like cream, being careful not to let it boil.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 set gently with heat, giving it a rich, smooth body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Creams with the butter to make a light base and adds sweetness.
Wine or brandy
Adds aroma and a sharp, warming flavour that balances the sweetness.
Hot cream or rich milk
Supplies liquid and fat, giving the sauce its pourable, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Keep the heat low and do not let the sauce boil. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat. If the sauce boils, the proteins tighten and scramble, leaving it grainy and thin instead of 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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