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Dessert

Brandy Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, brandy, rum, sugar, eggs, and cream, finished with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and rum are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while beating continuously.

  3. Mix in the egg yolks and salt.

  4. Slowly pour in the hot cream or milk.

  5. Cook over hot water until a delicate coating forms on a wooden spoon.

  6. Remove from heat and stir in the brandy and rum.

Finish and serve

  1. Gradually pour this mixture over the stiffly beaten egg whites, beating constantly.

  2. Sprinkle with nutmeg 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. Brandy + rumtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Rum + nutmegtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together646 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with the sugar to form a rich, smooth base for the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they cook gently over hot water, giving it body.
Egg whites
Stiffly beaten, they lighten the sauce and give it a airy, fluffy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps the butter cream smoothly.
Hot cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, loosening the custard-like base.

The step that matters

Cook over hot water until a delicate coating forms on a wooden spoon. Egg yolks thicken as they heat, but overheating can curdle or scramble them. Gentle heat over hot water thickens the sauce evenly and keeps it smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, brandy, sugar, rum, egg, cream):

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, brandy, sugar, rum, egg, cream. 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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