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Dessert

Vanilla Sauce

A sweet sauce made with milk, sugar, egg yolks, vanilla, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Vanilla Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine the milk and sugar.

  2. Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water over heat.

  3. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with a spoonful of cold milk.

  4. Stir the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk, stirring until thickened like cream, but do not let it boil to avoid curdling.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract and brandy.

  2. Serve the sauce warm or cold.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

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

  4. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a creamy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the milk and yolks.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk. Egg proteins set at moderate heat, but if the sauce boils they curdle and turn grainy. Keep it hot enough to thicken, never boiling, and stir steadily so the yolks cook evenly.

“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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