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Hard Sauce
⅓ cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla or other
1 cup powdered sugar flavoring
Cream the butter until very soft, then add the sugar and the flavoring. Set in a cool place until required for use. A grating of lemon-rind or nutmeg, or a sprinkle of powdered cinnamon may be used instead of vanilla. Cream or milk may be added, with more sugar to make more sauce. This sauce may be used with a hot pudding of any kind.
Granulated sugar, brown sugar or maple sugar may be substituted for the powdered sugar.
A two-ingredient sauce whose success depends entirely on how thoroughly the butter is beaten. The ingredient list in the original is set in two columns and reads scrambled: it is ½ cup butter, 1 cup powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla or other flavoring.
- Start with softened butterButter at cool room temperature, around 65F, creams to a pale fluff; cold butter stays grainy and refuses the sugar. Beat it alone for a minute or two before any sugar goes in.
- Powdered sugar means confectioners' sugarPowdered sugar -- Read this as something close to modern confectioners' sugar, though period powdered sugar was often coarser and had no added starch. Modern confectioners' sugar contains a little cornstarch, which is harmless here. The granulated, brown or maple sugar offered as substitutes may stay perceptibly gritty unless the sauce is beaten a long while.
- "Set in a cool place"That meant a larder or icebox shelf. The refrigerator works, but pull the sauce out 15 to 20 minutes before serving so it is firm rather than rock hard.
- Adding creamAdd it a teaspoon at a time with the mixer running, or the emulsion breaks and weeps butterfat. A tablespoon or two of cream plus a few extra tablespoons of sugar lightens the texture noticeably.
- FlavoringsLemon rind, nutmeg and cinnamon are all suggested; use about half a teaspoon of grated zest or a scant quarter teaspoon of spice. Grate nutmeg fresh, since the pre-ground kind fades with keeping.
- YieldRoughly one cup, enough for six to eight servings of pudding. It keeps a week covered in the refrigerator and freezes well.
- ServingThe whole idea is contrast: a spoonful of cold sauce on a hot pudding, so it half melts into a glaze. Serve the pudding straight from the steamer or oven.
Hard sauce takes its name simply from its firmness, in contrast with the poured liquid sauces served alongside it. It belongs to the English tradition of steamed and boiled puddings, where the classic form flavored with brandy became known as brandy butter. That this Butterick version offers vanilla, lemon rind, nutmeg or cinnamon and passes over spirits entirely may reflect the household-manual audience, and perhaps the temperance sentiment often said to be strong in the American press by the 1910s. The list of permitted sugars, including maple, is also worth noting: powdered sugar was a purchased convenience, while granulated, brown and maple sugar may well have been more readily at hand.