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Sauce

Rich Wine Sauce

A creamy sauce made with sherry wine, eggs, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and vanilla work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry piperonal, which smells bitter, coconut. The science ↓

Rich Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar, egg yolks, and sherry wine.

  2. Add vanilla extract and gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  3. Cook the mixture over hot water until thick.

Chill and finish

  1. Chill the sauce and then fold in the whipped cream.

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. Sherry + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Wine + vanillatop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together887 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce when heated, and whites add lightness and airy structure.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture once folded in.
Sherry wine
Contributes the main wine flavor and aroma to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the wine and eggs.
Vanilla extract
Adds a warm aroma that rounds out the flavor.

The step that matters

Cook over hot water until thick. Egg yolks thicken gently as they warm, but too much heat scrambles them into lumps. Cooking slowly over hot water, not direct heat, keeps the sauce smooth.

“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.

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