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Brandy Sauce

A sauce made with flour, water, egg yolk, sugar, brandy, and sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Brandy and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,209 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Brandy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Thicken the base

  1. Mix the flour with cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Add boiling water and stir over heat until thick, then remove from heat.

Finish the sauce

  1. Stir in the egg yolk for five minutes.

  2. Sweeten with caster sugar.

  3. Stir in brandy and sherry.

  4. Optionally, add nutmeg before the egg and butter for richness.

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. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sherry + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Fine flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot water.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and some body to the sauce.
Caster sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the brandy.
Brandy
Adds the main aroma and warm flavour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolk. Egg yolk can scramble and turn grainy if it meets very hot liquid. Removing the pan from direct heat first and stirring steadily lets the yolk thicken the sauce gently and evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, brandy, sherry, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Clovefits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, brandy, sherry, butter. 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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