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Wine Sauce
Mrs. Pulsifer.
Two ounces of butter, two teaspoons of flour, onequarter of a pound of sugar, one gill of wine, and half a nutmeg grated; mix the flour and butter together, add one-half pint boiling water and the sugar and wine; just before serving add the grated nutmeg. Serve hot,
A sweet dessert sauce for boiled and steamed puddings, thickened with a butter-and-flour paste rather than cooked as a roux. A few conversions and one restraint are all it needs.
- The measuresA gill is half a cup (4 fl oz). A quarter pound of sugar is about half a cup plus a tablespoon of granulated sugar, roughly 113 g. Two ounces of butter is four tablespoons.
- Half a nutmeg is a great dealHalf a whole nutmeg grated yields something like a teaspoon and a half of powder, which will dominate a sauce of this size. A teaspoon, freshly grated, gives the warmth the recipe is after; add it off the heat as directed so the aroma survives.
- Mixing the flour and butterWork the soft butter and flour to a smooth paste (a beurre manié) before any liquid goes near it. Whisk the boiling water in a little at a time or the flour will seize into lumps.
- It still needs to simmerTwo teaspoons of flour in this much liquid gives only a light body, and raw flour tastes of paste. Bring the sauce to a bare simmer for two or three minutes after the water goes in, then add sugar and wine.
- Add the wine last, and gentlyThe recipe puts the wine in with the sugar and the boiling water; adding it near the end instead keeps it from boiling away. Sherry, Madeira or a sweet white are all in keeping; a dry table wine will read sour against this much sugar.
- ConsistencyExpect something between a thin custard and a syrup, meant to be poured rather than spooned. If it tightens on standing, loosen it with a spoonful of hot water.
- YieldAbout a pint, enough to sauce a pudding for six. It is best made while the pudding steams and served straight from the pan.
Wine sauce is a standard accompaniment to the boiled and steamed puddings that fill the dessert chapters of nineteenth-century American cookbooks -- plum pudding, cottage pudding, batter and suet puddings, all of which are dry enough to want a hot liquid poured over them. Household manuals of the period commonly carry several versions: hard sauce beaten cold with butter and sugar, foaming sauce whipped with egg, and this simpler thickened kind, which uses water rather than cream and so was cheaper. The heavy hand with nutmeg is characteristic; nutmegs were bought whole and grated fresh as wanted, and nutmeg was one of the ordinary sweet spices of American baking. Like much of The Home Cook Book, the recipe arrives credited to a contributor by name, the book having been compiled from contributed receipts and published in aid of charity.