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Sauce

Liquid Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, egg, boiling water, and wine or brandy.

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

Liquid Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat together the sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the beaten egg white and yolk separately.

  3. Gradually stir in the boiling water to prevent curdling.

  4. Place the mixture on the fire and boil until it thickens.

  5. Flavor with wine or brandy to taste.

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 + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and helps the butter cream smoothly into a fluid sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow mouthfeel.
Egg
Thickens the sauce as its proteins set on heating, and adds richness.
Boiling water
Supplies the liquid base and, added gradually, keeps the egg from curdling.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the boiling water. Adding the hot water slowly lets the egg and butter emulsify gently. Pouring it in all at once can scramble the egg and make the sauce curdle.

“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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