Wine Sauce
Ingredients.
One ounce of Castor Sugar.
One gill of Water.
One tablespoonful of Jam.
One wineglassful of Sherry.
Half a teaspoonful of Lemon-juice.
Put the sugar and water into a stewpan and stir till the sugar is melted; boil and reduce to syrup, stir in the jam, and, when well mixed, stir in the wine and lemon-juice; let it boil up to cook the wine.
A sweet pudding sauce of the plainest sort: sugar syrup, jam for body and colour, sherry for flavour. It comes together in under ten minutes and needs only a little care at the reduction stage.
- Gill and wineglassA gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, about 5 fluid ounces or 140 ml. A wineglassful in Victorian and Edwardian cookery books is conventionally reckoned at about two fluid ounces, roughly a quarter cup, not a modern 175 ml glass.
- Castor sugarCaster sugar is superfine granulated sugar, about 30 g to the ounce. Ordinary granulated works here since it is being dissolved anyway.
- Reduce to syrupThis is the hinge. Boil the sugar and water only until it thickens slightly and coats a spoon; it should not colour or reach caramel. Overshoot and the finished sauce will be stickier and thicker than intended.
- Which jamThe recipe does not specify; apricot, raspberry or redcurrant would all suit, chosen to match the pudding. A well-set jam gives a glossier sauce than a runny modern conserve; strain out seeds or peel if you want it smooth.
- Boil up the wineA brief boil is meant to take the raw edge off the sherry, not to drive off the alcohol entirely. Thirty seconds to a minute is enough; longer and the wine flavour flattens.
- SherryA medium or cream sherry suits a sweet sauce best. Dry fino will taste thin against the jam unless you increase the sugar.
- Yield and servingMakes a small quantity; the water is reduced to a syrup before the wine is added, so expect rather less than the poured volumes suggest. Serve hot over steamed or baked puddings, plum pudding or a sponge; it thickens as it cools and can be loosened with a spoonful of hot water.
Sweet wine sauces of this kind were standard equipment in a well-run British kitchen, poured over the steamed and boiled puddings that were a familiar way to end a substantial meal. The structure here is entirely economical: a sugar syrup provides the base, a tablespoon of jam supplies both body and colour without the trouble of fruit or a roux, and a small measure of sherry does the actual flavouring. Sherry is often said to have been the household fortified wine in Britain, inexpensive enough to keep in the store cupboard and stable once opened, which is why it turns up in trifles, soups and sauces far more often than claret or hock. The lemon juice at the end is doing what lemon juice usually does in a sugar-heavy preparation: cutting sweetness and discouraging the syrup from crystallising.