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Sauce

Brandy or Wine Sauce

A sweet sauce made with corn starch, water, sugar, butter, and brandy or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Brandy or Wine Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Stir the corn starch in cold water to a smooth paste.

  2. Add the paste to boiling water, sugar, and butter.

  3. Boil together for 10 minutes.

Finish

  1. Let it cool, then add the brandy or wine.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  2. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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

Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavour of the brandy or wine.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.
Brandy or wine
Adds aroma and a distinct flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Make the starch paste smooth before adding it. Corn starch clumps if it hits hot liquid dry or unevenly. Mixing it into cold water first lets the granules disperse, so the sauce thickens smoothly as it boils.

“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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