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Dessert

Caramel Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, cloves, cinnamon, water, lemon peel, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Caramel Sauce

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine 6 ounces of granulated sugar, 2 cloves, 1 stick of cinnamon, 1 cup of boiling water, and lemon peel in a saucepan. Boil for 10 minutes.

Make the caramel

  1. In another saucepan, dissolve 2 ounces of granulated sugar in 1 tablespoon of boiling water over moderate heat. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring until it turns light brown.

Finish and serve

  1. Strain the first mixture over the caramel. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 3 tablespoons of sherry.

  3. Serve hot.

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.

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.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,237 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

Granulated sugar
Sweetness, and browns into caramel flavor when cooked dry.
Sherry
Adds acidity and a wine aroma to the finished sauce.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the syrup as it simmers.

The step that matters

Stirring the caramel until light brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to caramelize, so it can turn bitter if left unattended. Stirring keeps the color even and prevents scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, clove, cinnamon, sherry):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, clove, cinnamon, sherry. 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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