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Sauce

Cold Sauce for English Plum Pudding

A cold sauce made from softened butter, sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, and wine for English plum pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cold Sauce for English Plum Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Soften the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and stir until thick and white, resembling ice cream.

  3. Season with vanilla, nutmeg, and wine to taste.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when beaten with butter, helps create a thick, light texture.
Butter
Supplies fat for richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Wine
Adds liquid and aromatic flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Beating the sugar into the softened butter. Stirring until thick and white works air into the fat, which gives the sauce its light, creamy texture. If the butter is too cold or the mixing is too brief, the sauce stays dense and grainy.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, vanilla, wine):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Peppermintfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, vanilla, wine. 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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