Skip to main content
Dessert

Wine Sauce

A sauce made with egg yolks, egg whites, powdered sugar, milk, sherry wine, almonds, and sugar syrup, poured over stewed fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Wine Sauce

Why it works: Sherry and almond work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the egg base

  1. Beat the yolks of two eggs until light.

  2. Add ½ cup of powdered sugar.

  3. Beat the whites of two eggs until stiff.

  4. Add ½ cup of powdered sugar.

  5. Combine the two mixtures.

  6. Add ¼ cup of hot milk and 2 tablespoons of sherry wine.

Make the almond sauce

  1. Blanch the almonds.

  2. Pound them in a mortar.

  3. Combine the pounded almonds with a syrup made of 1 quart of milk and 1 pound of sugar.

  4. When thick, add the beaten yolks of two eggs. Stir well.

Serve

  1. Pour over any stewed fruit.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sherry + almondtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together517 recipes

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

  2. Milk + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,479 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten until stiff, they trap air and give the sauce a light, airy body.
Egg yolks
They enrich the sauce and thicken it as they gently heat, adding structure and body.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves easily into the eggs, adding sweetness and a smooth texture.
Almonds
Pounded fine, they add body, nutty flavor and a slightly grainy texture to the sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps the almond mixture thicken and hold together.
Milk
Makes the syrup that carries the almonds, adding moisture and a soft, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Adding the beaten yolks to the thickened mixture. Egg yolks thicken when heated gently, but if they meet too much heat they can curdle or scramble. Stirring well while adding them keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Cocoafits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

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

More wine sauce recipes

Port 17for Puddings 13White 12Rich 10Currant 9for Venison 8 See all 178 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes