Brandy Butter

A quite recent addition to the Christmas food repertoire, brandy butter was served to Queen Alexandra before World War I at the Christmas luncheon at Sandringham, the royal estate in Norfolk. Recipes for brandy butter—also known as hard sauce—appeared in American cookery books in the nineteenth century, but they didn’t feature in English recipe books until the twentieth century. A similar mixture of butter enriched with sherry, Madeira, or brandy and flavored with sugar and spices did appea