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Sauce

Wine Sauce

A sweet and nutmeg‑flavored sauce made with sherry, butter, sugar, and water.

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

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, cream together butter and sugar.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water while whipping.

  3. Beat for five minutes before slowly adding the sherry and sugar.

Heat and hold

  1. Heat the mixture in a tin vessel set in boiling water, stirring often but do not let it boil.

  2. Keep it warm in the water until ready to serve, stirring from the bottom as you 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.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + creamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it gives the sauce its richness and smooth body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps create a light texture.
Pale sherry
Contributes the wine flavour and aroma that define the sauce.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note.

The step that matters

Heat without boiling. Stirring often in a water bath and keeping it below a boil protects the butter emulsion. Boiling can make a butter-based sauce separate or turn grainy, and it also drives off the sherry's aroma.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Macefits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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