Hard sauce

Christmas dessert including hard sauce (lower centre) for pudding (and on tarts at upper right)

Hard sauce is a cold dessert sauce made by creaming or beating butter and sugar with rum, brandy, whiskey, vanilla or other flavoring. It is typically served with plum pudding, bread pudding, Indian pudding, hasty pudding, and other heavy puddings as well as with fruitcakes and gingerbread. An example of such a sauce is brandy butter.

Though it is called a sauce, it is neither a liquid nor smooth. It could be more accurately classified as a spread and has the consistency of butter. It is easy to make and keeps for up to three weeks. It can be poured into a decorative mold before chilling.