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Hard Sauce
1/3 cup butter 1 cup powdered sugar 1/3 teaspoon lemon extract ⅔ teaspoon vanilla Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and flavoring.
A butter-and-sugar sauce meant to be spread cold over a hot steamed pudding, where it melts into a glaze. It comes together in five minutes and depends almost entirely on the sugar you choose and the temperature of the butter.
- "Powdered sugar" is not what you thinkIn Farmer's usage powdered sugar is a fine-grained granulated sugar, one step coarser than confectioners'. Modern confectioners' (10X) sugar contains cornstarch and gives a smoother, slightly pastier sauce; superfine (caster) sugar is closer to the original and leaves a faint pleasant grit.
- Butter temperature is the hingeThe butter must be soft enough to cream but still cool, around 65F. Warm or partly melted butter will not hold the sugar in suspension and the sauce separates into a greasy pool as it stands.
- Add the sugar slowlyBeating in the full cup at once gives a heavy, sandy paste. Adding it in three or four additions, beating well between, aerates the mixture so it whitens and lightens.
- SaltButter in Farmer's day was commonly salted, though this recipe specifies only 'butter'. With unsalted butter, add a pinch of salt with the sugar or the sauce reads as flatly sweet.
- The flavoringsA third of a teaspoon of lemon extract is a very small amount, and in practice reads as a sharpener for the vanilla rather than as a flavor of its own. Grated lemon zest is a fair substitute and less harsh than modern extracts.
- Chill and shapeHard sauce is served cold and firm. Pile it in a small dish and refrigerate at least an hour, or press it into a mold or roll it in waxed paper and slice coins to lay on each hot serving.
- YieldAbout three-quarters of a cup, enough for six to eight servings of steamed or plum pudding.
Hard sauce is generally said to take its name from its state: solid at the table, in contrast to the liquid or "soft" custard sauces served alongside the same puddings. It belongs to the English tradition of brandy butter eaten with Christmas pudding, and versions flavored with brandy, sherry or rum were common in nineteenth-century American cookbooks. Farmer's version leans on lemon and vanilla extracts instead, and bottled extracts were cheap and shelf-stable by the 1890s. The sauce is designed to be cold, so that it collapses into cream the moment it meets a steaming pudding.