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Rich Brandy Sauce

A sweet cream sauce thickened with egg yolks and butter, finished with brandy.

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

Rich Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Heat the cream in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar.

  3. Add the beaten yolks to the boiling cream, then stir in the butter.

  4. Continue stirring until the mixture thickens, but do not let it boil.

  5. Strain the sauce through a wire sieve and mix in the brandy.

  6. Serve hot.

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. 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. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 smooth, custard-like body.
Sweet cream
Provides the rich liquid base and fat that carry the flavour and body of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy, smooth texture and richer mouthfeel.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavour added at the end, after cooking, so its aroma is preserved.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the yolks into the cream without boiling. Egg yolks scramble if they get too hot. Keep the mixture below boiling and stir constantly so it thickens smoothly rather than curdling into lumps.

“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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