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Vanilla Sauce (Put one-half pint milk)
Put one-half pint milk in small saucepan over the fire; when scalding hot, add yolks of three eggs; stir until thick as boiled custard; add, when taken from the fire and cooled, one tablespoon extract vanilla and whites of eggs whipped stiff.
A stirred custard lightened with beaten whites — what later books call a mousseline or fluffy sauce. Two things need attention: the vanilla quantity and the way the yolks meet the hot milk.
- Half a pint of milkOne cup. Whole milk gives the body the recipe assumes; skim will taste thin. Once the whites go in the sauce swells considerably; figure on enough for four to six servings of pudding.
- Temper the yolksAs written the yolks go straight into scalding milk, which will curdle them unless you work fast. Beat the yolks in a bowl, whisk in a ladle of the hot milk, then return everything to the pan.
- "Thick as boiled custard"Stir over low heat until the sauce coats the back of a spoon and holds a line drawn by your finger — about 175F. It must not simmer; at a boil the yolks scramble and no amount of whisking brings them back.
- A tablespoon of extract is too muchHousehold extracts of the period were not standardised, and some were weak or homemade from a bean steeped in spirit. With modern pure vanilla, use 1 to 2 teaspoons. Add it off the heat as directed, since the aroma is volatile.
- The whites go in rawThey are folded into a sauce that is never reheated. If you are serving anyone pregnant, elderly, very young or immune-compromised, use pasteurized whites or a carton white product.
- Fold lateWhip the whites to soft-stiff peaks and fold them in just before the sauce goes to the table. On standing the foam will begin to weep and settle back into the custard.
- ServingA sauce of this kind suits steamed and baked puddings. Serve it barely cool rather than refrigerator-cold.
Vanilla sauce of this kind is a thrift dish as much as a luxury one: a plain steamed or baked pudding was cheap, and a good sauce was what made it worth eating. Cookbooks of the period print pudding sauces by the dozen — hard sauce, foamy sauce, lemon, caramel, wine. The technique here is a crème anglaise stretched with whipped whites, a way of making one cup of milk and three eggs cover a whole family's dessert. The full tablespoon of extract may reflect the unsettled state of American vanilla before standards of identity: some of what was sold as extract was diluted or adulterated with tonka bean or coumarin, and extract was also made at home by soaking a bean in spirit.