Fine Pudding Sauce
Take a large half-pint cup of the best fresh butter, and the same quantity of powdered loaf-sugar. Put them together in an earthen pan, and beat them to a light thick cream. Then mix a jill or wine-glass of boiling water, and a large wine-glass of the best brandy, with the grated yellow rind and juice of a large lemon or orange; and a small nutmeg, grated. Mix these ingredients, gradually, with the beaten butter and sugar; and transfer the sauce to a small tureen, putting a spoon or ladle into it.
If designed for sauce to a plum-pudding or any other large one, you will require a pint of butter, a pint of sugar, half a pint of boiling water with half a pint of brandy, two lemons or oranges, and a large nutmeg, or two small ones. Divide the sauce in two tureens. A boiled pudding for company requires no finer sauce than this.
Where real cream is plenty, a bowl of it well sweetened with sugar, and flavored with nutmeg, is nice for any boiled pudding. If you add wine or lemon juice to cream sauce, previously mix the acid with the sugar, and make it very sweet before you put them to the cream, lest it should curdle.