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Dessert

Brandy Sauce, Cold

A cold sauce made from butter, powdered sugar, brandy, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce, Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Warm the butter slightly and cream it with the powdered sugar until light.

  2. Add the brandy, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and beat the mixture well.

  3. Set aside until needed.

Serve

  1. For presentation, pour into a mold and serve on a flat dish.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Brandy + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,199 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Brandy + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, creamed with butter, gives it a smooth, light body.
Butter
Adds richness and a creamy texture, and holds air when creamed with sugar.
Brandy
Adds a warm, distinctive alcoholic flavour and aroma to the sauce.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm, sweet spice aroma and flavour.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, aromatic spice note that rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Warm the butter only slightly before creaming. Butter that is too warm or melted cannot trap air when creamed with sugar, so the mixture turns greasy and dense instead of light and 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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