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Sauce

Brandy Sauce

A sauce made with butter, boiling water, brandy, egg yolks, pulverized sugar, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,127 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the boiling water and place the mixture in a double boiler.

  3. Stir until the sauce boils, then add brandy to taste.

Add the eggs

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with enough pulverized sugar to thicken them.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of brandy to the yolk mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently at the end.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Brandy + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Brandy and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and help it thicken when gently heated.
Egg whites
Add lightness and an airy texture when folded in.
Pulverized sugar
Adds sweetness and helps thicken the beaten egg yolks.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently at the end.. Beaten egg whites trap air in a foam that gives the sauce its lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates that foam, leaving a dense, heavy sauce.

“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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