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Delicious Sauce for Puddings
To a large wineglassful (say a glass for champagne wine) of new Madeira add the yolks only of two eggs. Put in a very clean enamel saucepan over the fire and stir in powdered sugar to your taste. Whisk it over the fire till it froths, but do not allow it even to simmer. Use for Genoese cakes and puddings.
This is a sabayon — warm whisked egg yolks, wine and sugar — under a plainer name. The whole dish hangs on heat control, so read the temperature note first.
- Never let it simmerThe instruction to froth it but not simmer is the entire technique. Above roughly 180F the yolks scramble and the foam breaks; work over a pan of barely steaming water rather than direct flame, and lift the bowl off the heat whenever the whisk starts to feel like it is dragging.
- But do bring it to 160FYolks warmed only until frothy may not get hot enough to be safe. Whisk until the mixture thickens to a ribbon and reads 160F on an instant-read thermometer, which is comfortably below the point where it curdles.
- A large wineglassfulPeriod wineglasses ran small, and the author's gloss of a champagne glass suggests something in the region of 4 fl oz, or half a cup. The measure is genuinely loose, so judge by texture: about a quarter cup of wine per yolk gives a sauce that pours; more gives a foam that collapses quickly.
- New Madeira"New" most likely means young and comparatively fresh rather than the deeply oxidised old bottlings, though the recipe does not explain the term. A Rainwater or a young Verdelho works; a rich Malmsey will need less sugar.
- Powdered sugarIn this period the term usually means granulated sugar ground fine, not modern confectioners' sugar with its cornstarch. Caster or superfine sugar is the closer match and dissolves without clouding the foam.
- Enamel saucepanThe point of the specified pan is that it is non-reactive — bare iron or unlined copper will turn a wine-and-yolk mixture grey and metallic. A stainless bowl set over water does the same job with better control.
- Genoese cakesGénoise, the whisked-egg sponge, which is dry by design and built to absorb a sauce. The sabayon also suits steamed puddings, poached pears or plain sliced fruit.
- Yield and timingTwo yolks make roughly three-quarters of a cup of sauce, enough for two or three servings. It deflates within minutes, so make it last and carry it straight to the table.
Warm wine-and-yolk foams of this kind are Italian in origin -- zabaione, generally traced to the courts of northern Italy -- and travelled across Europe as sabayon, picking up whatever wine was to hand: Marsala in Italy, Madeira or Champagne in French kitchens. Madeira's presence here is a reminder of how thoroughly the fortified wines of the Atlantic islands had entered northern European cooking by the nineteenth century, valued for keeping well once opened and for a nutty depth that plain white wine cannot give. It is a sauce that costs one good glass of wine, two yolks and five minutes of whisking, and turns a dry slice of sponge into a dessert worth serving to guests.