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Wine Custard Sauce
Take the yolks of eight eggs, beat them up till thick, mix with them sugar to taste, the juice of two lemons, half a pint of white wine, and a little more than half that quantity of water. Set the liquid on the fire, beat with a whisk till it froths: whenever the sauce boils, take it off. This sauce is to be eaten with puddings and tarts.
A whisked wine foam in the zabaglione family, thinned with water and sharpened with lemon. It comes together in a few minutes and holds badly, so make it last.
- The hinge: it must not boilThe instruction to take it off "whenever the sauce boils" is the whole recipe. Egg yolk proteins set from about 150F and curdle above roughly 180F, so work over a pan of barely simmering water rather than direct heat and pull it the moment it thickens and holds the whisk trail.
- Imperial measuresCassell's half pint is 10 imperial fluid ounces, about 1¼ US cups of wine. "A little more than half that quantity" of water is roughly 6 fl oz — the proportions are forgiving, and less water gives a richer sauce.
- Sugar to tasteWith two lemons in the mix you need more than instinct suggests: start at 4 tablespoons for eight yolks and adjust. Dissolve it into the yolks before heating so it does not sit as grit at the bottom.
- The wineThe recipe specifies only "white wine". Anything crisp and unoaked works; sweet Marsala or a Madeira turns it toward true zabaglione, in which case cut the sugar back.
- Whisk shapeA balloon whisk in a wide, round-bottomed bowl beats far more air in than a saucepan corner allows. The volume gained here is what makes it a sauce rather than a thin custard.
- Yield and servingEight yolks give roughly 3 cups of foamed sauce, enough for six to eight puddings. Serve within minutes of making — it deflates and can weep as it stands, though a brief rewhisk over warm water recovers it.
- AlcoholThe sauce is only briefly heated and never reduced, so much of the wine's alcohol survives. Worth knowing if it is going to a table with children at it.
This is the English drawing-room version of a family of whisked wine foams found across Europe: Italian zabaglione, French sabayon, German Weinschaumsauce. All rest on the same discovery, that egg yolks beaten over gentle heat with a liquid will trap air and thicken into something between a sauce and a froth, no cream or flour required. The lemon juice and the added water here mark it as a sauce rather than a dessert in its own right — lighter and sharper than the Italian original, meant to be poured over a steamed pudding or a fruit tart rather than eaten from a glass.