Skip to main content
Drink

Wine Sauce

A sauce made with wine, water, flour, eggs, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Wine Sauce

Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little water to form a paste.

  2. Add the 2 eggs and mix well.

Cook the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine the wine and 1¾ cups of water.

  2. Stir constantly over low heat until it comes to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat immediately and strain the mixture.

  4. Add sugar and cinnamon 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.

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.

  1. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Wine + cinnamontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,170 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Eggs
Add richness and help thicken the sauce as they cook.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring constantly over low heat. Flour and egg proteins can clump or scramble if heated unevenly or left unstirred. Constant stirring over low heat keeps the sauce smooth and lets the starch thicken evenly as it comes to a boil.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, wine, sugar, flour):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, wine, sugar, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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.

More wine sauce recipes

Port 17for Puddings 13White 12Rich 10Currant 9for Venison 8 See all 178 →

You might also like

Wine WheyWine Whey111 recipesRaisin WineRaisin Wine64 recipesEgg WineEgg Wine58 recipesElderberry WineElderberry Wine51 recipes