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Sauce

Vanilla Sauce

A vanilla-infused sauce made with white sauce, brandy, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add a few drops of vanilla to the plain white sauce.

  2. Stir in ⅓ cup of brandy gradually.

  3. Add castor sugar 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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

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

  3. Sauce + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + vanillatop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together609 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Plain white sauce
Forms the creamy base that carries the other flavours and gives the sauce its body.
Vanilla
Adds a warm, aromatic flavour to the sauce.
Brandy
Adds a rich, aromatic note that deepens the overall flavour.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the brandy and vanilla.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, brandy, sugar):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Apricotfits less well
  4. Figfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, brandy, sugar. 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.

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