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Sauce

Maple-syrup Sauce

A sauce made by boiling maple syrup and lemon juice, then adding butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Maple-syrup Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the maple syrup and lemon juice together for 5 to 6 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the butter until melted.

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 + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Maple syrup + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Maple syrup + lemontop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together325 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Maple syrup
Provides the main sweetness and flavour, and thins to a pourable sauce as it boils.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture when stirred in off the heat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the maple syrup.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (maple syrup, butter):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against maple syrup, butter. 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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