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Sauce

Brandy Sauce for Ice Cream

A sweet sauce made from sugar, water, brandy, and whipped cream.

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 ↓

Brandy Sauce for Ice Cream

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil sugar and water together until thick.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add brandy to the cooled mixture, adjusting the amount to taste.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream gently.

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. Brandy + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,635 recipes

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

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

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

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

Sugar
Provides sweetness and, when boiled with water, thickens into a syrup.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm, spirited flavor.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a creamy texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the brandy. Alcohol's aroma fades quickly when heated, so adding brandy to a hot syrup wastes much of its flavor and can make the taste harsh. Cooling the syrup first keeps the brandy's character in the sauce.

“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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