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Sauce

Rich Wine Sauce

A sauce made from butter, powdered sugar, and wine, whipped until smooth and foamy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Rich Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Gradually add the powdered sugar and beat until very light.

Add the wine

  1. Slowly add the hot wine, a little at a time.

  2. Place the bowl in a basin of hot water and stir for 2 minutes until smooth and foamy.

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. Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides richness and fat, and when beaten, traps air that lightens the base.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and body, and dissolves smoothly because it is so finely ground.
Wine
Adds liquid and acidity, along with the aroma and flavour that define the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the hot wine slowly. Butter and sugar form a fat-based emulsion that can split if too much liquid goes in at once. Adding the wine a little at a time lets it blend in evenly, keeping the sauce smooth rather than broken and greasy.

“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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