Wine Sauce

A hard sauce in the older sense: creamed butter and sugar, no cooking, served cold against a hot pudding so it melts into it. The whole success of it is in how the wine goes in.

• Add the wine drop by dropThree tablespoons of liquid into half a cup of butter will curdle and weep if poured in at once. Beat it in a teaspoon at a time with the butter at cool room temperature, around 65F, and stop as soon as each addition disappears.
• Powdered sugarModern confectioners' sugar is the practical substitute, though in this period 'powdered sugar' usually meant a finely ground sugar rather than the cornstarch-cut product sold under that name now. Whichever you use, it should be fine enough not to stay gritty in an uncooked sauce.
• ButterUnsalted, and softened but not melted or oiled. If the butter breaks, chill the bowl briefly and beat again rather than adding more sugar.
• The wineA medium or cream Sherry, or a sweeter Madeira such as Bual or Malmsey. A dry fino reads thin against this much sugar.
• NutmegGrate it over the sauce once it is piled on the dish, not into the mixture. Whole nutmeg grated fresh is a different spice from the pre-ground tin.
• Serving and yieldRoughly a cup and a half, enough for six to eight servings of steamed or Christmas pudding. Mound it on a cold dish; it is meant to hold its shape until the hot pudding reaches it.
• KeepingIt holds a week covered in the refrigerator. Bring it back only to cool room temperature before piling and grating, or it will slump.