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Brandy Sauce
Two tablespoons of butter; four tablespoons of brandy; four tablespoons of boiling water; one egg (white); one-half cup of powdered sugar. Beat the butter to a cream, gradually add the sugar, and beat until white and light; then add the white, beaten to a stiff froth and stir well. When ready to serve, add the brandy and the water, stand the bowl containing the sauce in a basin of boiling water on the fire, and stir until the sauce is light and foamy. Serve with fruit or suet puddings.
A foamy brandy sauce built like a hard sauce and then warmed over water to lighten it. The hinge is the water bath: keep it below a simmer and stir constantly, or the egg white sets in threads and the butter breaks out.
- "On the fire"This means the stovetop, not an open flame. Set the mixing bowl in a wide pan of hot water over low heat; the water should steam, not bubble against the bowl.
- Temperature targetWhisk until the sauce reads about 160F on an instant-read thermometer. That settles the raw-egg question; if you would rather not judge it, use pasteurized egg white.
- Powdered sugarPeriod powdered sugar was simply finely ground white sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar contains a small amount of cornstarch, up to about 3 percent, which is harmless here.
- MeasuresFour tablespoons of brandy is a quarter cup, as is the boiling water. Half a cup of powdered sugar is about 2 oz by weight, not the 3.5 oz you would get from granulated.
- Order of operationsThe brandy and water go in only at the last moment, as written. Added early they slacken the creamed butter and the sauce will not hold air.
- AlcoholThe brandy is stirred into a warm sauce, never boiled, so much of the alcohol remains. This is not a sauce for children or anyone avoiding spirits.
- Yield and timingRoughly a cup and a quarter, enough for four to six servings of a steamed pudding. It falls within a few minutes of leaving the heat, so make it while the pudding is being turned out and serve it straight from the bowl.
- If it separatesPull the bowl off the water and whisk hard; a splash of boiling water usually brings it back. Once it has actually scrambled it cannot be saved.
Brandy sauce belongs to the family of pudding sauces that English and American cooks used through the nineteenth century, alongside hard sauce, foamy sauce and plain sweetened cream. The distinction here is that the same creamed butter and sugar used for hard sauce is warmed and aerated with egg white, producing something between a sauce and a warm mousse. A suet or fruit pudding of the period was dense, dark and only lightly sweet, and a rich sauce suited it; brandy was a common choice.