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Brandy Sauce

A butter-based sauce thickened with arrowroot or cornflour, flavored with sherry and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sherry and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Make a butter sauce by melting the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the arrowroot or cornflour until smooth.

  3. Sweeten the sauce to taste.

  4. Add the sherry and brandy, stirring well.

  5. If desired, add a little seasoning, though it's unnecessary if the pudding is properly seasoned.

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 + brandytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Arrowroot + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together129 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melted fat that carries flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth body.
Arrowroot or cornflour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a glossy sauce as it absorbs moisture and heats.
Sherry
Liquid that adds wine-based flavour and thins the sauce to a pourable consistency.
Brandy
Adds aromatic, warming flavour that gives the sauce its characteristic taste.

The step that matters

Stir in the arrowroot or cornflour until smooth. Starch clumps when it hits hot fat unless it is fully dispersed and stirred. Smooth mixing lets the starch thicken evenly, so the sauce sets without lumps.

Swap the arrowroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sherry, brandy):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sherry, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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