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Sauce

For Brandy, or Wine Sauce

A custard-like sauce made with egg yolks, sugar, cream, and brandy or sherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

For Brandy, or Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Whisk together the egg yolks, castor sugar, cream or milk, and brandy or sherry in a small saucepan.

  2. Fill a larger saucepan half full with hot water and place it on the stove.

  3. Set the small saucepan in the hot water and whisk the sauce for 6 to 8 minutes, ensuring it does not boil to prevent curdling.

Serve

  1. Remove the small saucepan from the hot water and pour the sauce over plum pudding or into a sauceboat for serving.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Cream + brandytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

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

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they gently cook, giving it a smooth, custard-like body.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce and making it smoother.
Brandy or sherry
Adds aroma and a warm, boozy flavour that balances the sweetness.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps keep the egg yolks smooth while whisking.

The step that matters

Whisking over gentle heat without boiling. Egg yolks thicken at low temperatures but curdle if they get too hot. Keeping the water hot rather than boiling and whisking constantly lets the sauce thicken evenly and stay smooth.

“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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