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Sauce

German Sweet Sauce

A sweet sauce made from egg yolks, sugar, and sherry wine, gently cooked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

German Sweet Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, mix the egg yolks and sugar.

  2. Add the sherry wine and place the saucepan on the cool part of the stove to prevent boiling.

  3. Transfer the mixture to another saucepan over simmering water.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + sherrytop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  5. Sherry + winetop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together0 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks thicken the sauce as they gently heat, giving it body and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the tartness of the sherry.
Sherry wine
Adds flavor and aroma, and its liquid thins the sauce.

The step that matters

Keeping the heat gentle. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures, so if the mixture gets too hot it can scramble or curdle instead of becoming smooth. Keeping the saucepan off direct heat and over simmering water lets the yolks thicken slowly and 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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