Skip to main content
Dessert

Snow Sauce

A sweet sauce made with sugar, butter, egg yolk, wine or brandy, topped with beaten egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Snow Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Heat the wine or brandy in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, butter, and egg yolk until smooth.

  3. Combine the heated wine or brandy with the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg white until light and fluffy.

  2. Top the sauce with the beaten egg white before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the sauce into a smooth, creamy texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smooth body to the sauce.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps balance the alcohol in the sauce.
Egg white
Whipped to a light, fluffy foam that tops the sauce for airy contrast.

The step that matters

Beat the egg white until light and fluffy. Egg white must be whipped enough to trap air and hold a foam. Under-whipped whites collapse into the sauce, while over-beaten whites turn dry and grainy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes