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Sauce

Brandy Sauce

A sauce made with eggs, sugar, brandy, and milk or cream, whisked over a water bath and poured over pudding.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,738 recipes. Both carry gamma-nonanolactone, which smells coconut, sweet. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a pint saucepan, whisk together the yolks of the eggs, castor sugar, brandy, and milk or cream until well mixed.

  2. Fill a quart stewpan halfway with hot water.

  3. Place the saucepan in the hot water and whisk for 6 to 7 minutes.

Serve

  1. Remove the saucepan from the stewpan and pour the sauce over the pudding.

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. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  2. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce as they gently heat and set.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps smooth the texture of the sauce.
Milk or cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, pourable body.
Brandy or sherry
Adds a distinctive aroma and flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Whisk over gentle hot water. The sauce is held in hot water rather than direct heat so the egg yolks thicken slowly and evenly. Too much heat, or stopping the whisking, can curdle or scramble the eggs, leaving a grainy sauce instead of a smooth one.

“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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