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Sauce

Brandy Sauce

A sauce made with milk, arrowroot, sugar, egg yolk, and brandy, thickened and served warm.

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

  1. Mix the arrowroot and milk together until smooth.

  2. Pour into a small saucepan and stir until it boils.

  3. Add the sugar and remove from heat to cool slightly.

  4. Mix the brandy and egg yolk together.

  5. Pour the mixture into the sauce and stir until it thickens. Serve.

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. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Arrowroot + brandytop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together141 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the starch thickens into a smooth sauce.
Arrowroot or cornflour
Starch that swells and thickens the sauce when heated.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps thicken the sauce as its proteins set with heat.
Brandy
Adds its distinctive alcoholic flavour to the sauce.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the brandy.

The step that matters

Adding the brandy and egg yolk mixture. Egg yolk thickens as its proteins set with heat, so it can scramble if overheated. Stir steadily and avoid letting the sauce boil hard once the yolk is added.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, brandy. 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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