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Sauce for Pudding
Two large cupfuls brown sugar; one large cupful butter; one teacup wine; a little rose water. Boil the sugar and wine together. Then add the butter and grated nutmeg.-Mrs. McG.
A rich boiled wine-and-butter sauce for steamed or boiled puddings. The whole thing hangs on adding the butter off the heat and whisking it in, so the sauce stays glossy rather than separating into a pool of fat.
- The measuresA 19th-century teacup is usually reckoned at about 3/4 cup (6 fl oz), smaller than a modern mug. "Large cupful" is genuinely vague; read it as a generous 8 oz cup. The quantities are large -- closer to three cups of finished sauce than two.
- Which wineThe recipe says only "wine." In a Virginia household of this date that most likely meant sherry, Madeira or a sweet homemade fruit wine rather than a dry table red; sherry or Madeira suits the sweet, boiled treatment.
- Boil the sugar and wine only brieflyBring them just to a boil to dissolve the sugar and take the raw edge off the wine, two or three minutes. Longer and it thickens toward candy and will set hard on the plate.
- Adding the butterThe recipe says only "then add the butter." It is safest to pull the pan off the heat and whisk the butter in in pieces; butter beaten into a still-boiling syrup, or a sauce returned to the burner afterward, is more likely to separate.
- Rose waterStill sold, but modern rose waters vary wildly in strength. Start with 1/2 teaspoon of a food-grade rose water and taste; some concentrated versions need only a few drops.
- NutmegGrate it fresh at the end. Pre-ground nutmeg has lost most of the volatile oil that this sauce depends on for its character.
- AlcoholA short boil in a butter-heavy sauce leaves a good deal of the alcohol behind. Worth knowing if you are serving children or anyone avoiding it.
- Serving and storageServe warm, poured over plum pudding, apple or bread pudding. It sets firm when chilled; rewarm gently over low heat or in a water bath and whisk to bring it back together.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1879), compiled by Marion Cabell Tyree, gathered contributions from named and initialed Virginia housewives, which is why this one carries only "Mrs. McG." Sweet wine sauces of this type — sugar, butter, wine, nutmeg — were a common accompaniment to boiled and steamed puddings in the 18th and 19th centuries, the warm counterpart to the uncooked "hard sauce" creamed from butter and sugar. The rose water is the older note here: distilled flower waters were widely used as sweet flavorings in English and colonial American cookery before vanilla extract became cheap and common, and they appear in Southern receipt books well into the 19th century. Nutmeg and imported wine alike reached Virginia tables through the Atlantic trade.