Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓
Wine Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Heat the wine and add it one tablespoon at a time, beating well after each addition.
Set the mixture in a pan of boiling water for 1 minute.
Serve
Serve warm.
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.
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Butter + winetop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,645 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together9,581 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the sauce a light, fluffy body and rich fat flavour.
- Sugar
- Creamed with butter to form a light base and add sweetness to the sauce.
- Wine
- Added gradually to give the sauce its main flavour and liquid.
The step that matters
Adding the wine gradually. Adding wine one tablespoon at a time while beating lets the liquid blend into the creamed butter and sugar. Adding it all at once can cause the mixture to separate or look curdled.
“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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