Festive Foods: hard sauce
Because my father was married to the greatest cook in the universe, he didn't do much in the kitchen. However, he did make two things: Seville orange marmalade and hard sauce to go on the Christmas plum pudding.
He was an English professor, so he had to make it the way it would have appeared in a Dickens novel. None of the recipes I've seen on the net comes close. ...
I don't have his recipe, but basically it was a softened stick of butter beaten with vanilla and a lot of granulated sugar. (Not brandy because the plum pudding had so much alcohol in it.)
Modern recipes all seem to have changed the sugar to confectioners' sugar, which as a little girl I always wished he would do because the finished hard sauce seemed so grainy.
The other thing that modern recipes don't seem to get is that it's called hard sauce for a reason. After it's beaten, it should be chilled, so you spoon out a lump, something like the photo above. It's not a sauce until it melts on the warm plum pudding.
(Photo courtesy of bunrab.com)
Comments
Just a thought on the grainy sugar texture - My memory tells me that my grandmother used caster sugar for hard sauce. It's kind of between granulated and powdered. I'm not sure you can buy this. I would think you could whiz up some granulated sugar in a spice mill or something like that to make a finer texture.
Posted by: Dave | December 19, 2007 11:13 AM
Caster sugar is also called superfine sugar.
I've heard that you can make it yourself by pulverizing regular granulated sugar in a food processor, but I haven't actually tried that myself.
Why not just buy a box of it? (I've used it in the past for meringues.)
Posted by: Hal Laurent | December 19, 2007 11:37 AM
I thought MY father was married to the greatest cook in the universe (will this earn me chocolate mint sticks and butterscotch brownies for Christmas?)
Posted by: Gailor Large | December 19, 2007 12:01 PM
Tough call, Gailor. Both your mother and her mother are mighty fine cooks. But since it's Christmas you just might get the chocolate mint sticks.
[Eliizabeth's] Brother Bim
Posted by: Frank H. Smith III | December 19, 2007 1:48 PM
The grainy texture of the sugar only tasted bad to a child, as Elizabeth implied. So get the GRAINIEST sugar you can find; the texture on the tongue is wonderful !
Posted by: Tom | December 19, 2007 2:04 PM
This thread reminds me of a favorite cousin whose father used to make an angel food cake once a year for his wife's birthday. He always bought a new can of baking powder and everyone had to tiptoe while the cake was in the oven. I love this story, just because it seems so improbable!
Posted by: Darlene | December 19, 2007 4:00 PM
Dave, (English) Castor sugar is superfine sugar in America. If you can't find it in the store, which seems unlikely, whiz some in the processor for about a minute until it's almost dust.
Posted by: Dottie | December 19, 2007 4:31 PM
Elizabeth: I don't remember being married to your father. Sorry
Posted by: mdlrvrmuncher | December 19, 2007 4:56 PM
My British father used to make Seville orange marmalade and hard sauce, too. He also made the christmas cake every year. He made Christmas puddings every couple of years and stored them in the pantry. It was always a test of will to see if he could get the pud to flame from the alcohol in it!
This is our first holiday season without him, so things will be different.
Posted by: Fairfax | December 20, 2007 2:25 PM
Fairfax, I hope someone in the family will make the hard sauce or the marmalade and keep the memory of your father bright.
Posted by: Darlene | December 20, 2007 5:05 PM
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