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Sauce

Guards' Sauce

A sauce made from butter, sugar, and brandy, beaten until creamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,127 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Guards' Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter until it is creamy and appears white.

  2. Add the white sugar and brandy, then mix until it resembles the consistency of cream.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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

Butter
Provides fat and richness, and when beaten with sugar it traps air for a light, creamy texture.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter hold air as it is beaten, giving a smooth texture.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour, and loosens the mixture to a creamy consistency.

The step that matters

Beating the butter until creamy and white. Beating softened butter with sugar incorporates air, which lightens the texture. If the butter is too cold or under-beaten, the sauce stays dense and grainy, and if the brandy is added too early or too fast it can cause the mixture to separate.

“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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