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Dessert

Wine Sauce

A sweet sauce made with sugar, butter, boiling water, sherry wine, nutmeg, thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Wine Sauce

Why it works: Nutmeg and corn work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 563 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine sugar, butter, boiling water, sherry wine, and nutmeg in a saucepan.

  2. Stir the mixture and bring it to a boil.

  3. Thicken the sauce with corn starch mixed with a little water, cooking for about 10 minutes.

  4. Keep the sauce hot until needed.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, pourable sauce when heated.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Provides sweetness and helps balance the sherry.
Sherry wine
Adds its distinctive flavour and a touch of acidity.

The step that matters

Thickening with corn starch. Corn starch must be mixed with cold or room-temperature water before adding, otherwise it clumps. The starch granules swell and thicken the liquid only when it is heated, so the sauce needs enough simmering time to reach full thickness.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, sherry, wine, corn. 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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