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Dessert

Caramel Sauce

A sweet sauce made by caramelizing sugar and adding water, cold water, sugar, and optional brandy or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Caramel Sauce

Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Caramel Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Brown the sugar

  1. Heat a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add 4 tablespoons of white sugar and 1 tablespoon of water.

  3. Stir continuously for 3-4 minutes until the water evaporates.

  4. Watch carefully until the mixture turns a delicate brown color.

Make the sauce

  1. Have 1 pint of cold water and 1 cup of sugar mixed with flavoring ready.

  2. Pour this mixture into the saucepan with the browned sugar.

  3. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.

  4. Add ½ glass of brandy or 1 glass of wine, if desired.

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. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy 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

White sugar
Melts and browns to form the caramel color and its toasted, bittersweet flavor.
Sugar mixed with flavoring
Adds sweetness and body to the finished sauce.
Brandy or wine
Adds aroma and a boozy depth to the sauce.

The step that matters

Watch the sugar as it browns. Sugar darkens quickly from pale gold to burnt. Removing the caramel at a delicate brown keeps its flavor sweet and nutty rather than bitter.

“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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