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Dessert

Cinnamon Sauce

A sauce made by boiling cinnamon in water, then adding sherry, bay leaves, and sugar, simmering, and straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cinnamon Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the broken cinnamon stick in water for 30 minutes.

  2. Add sherry, bay leaves, and pounded sugar.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

  4. Strain the mixture and serve.

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. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Cinnamon + sherrytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cinnamon stick
Releases warm, sweet aroma into the liquid as it steeps.
Sherry
Adds fruity, nutty depth and a touch of acidity to the sauce.
Bay leaves
Add a subtle herbal aroma as they infuse the liquid.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the sherry's acidity.

The step that matters

Boil the broken cinnamon stick in water for 30 minutes. Cinnamon flavour is extracted slowly into hot water. If the stick is not given enough time to steep, the sauce will taste weak and flat. Breaking the stick exposes more surface, which speeds up the extraction.

“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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