Richard Sax

Southern Wine Sauce for Spongecake

Preparation info

  • Makes about

    1⅓ cups

    • Difficulty

      Easy

Appears in

top 1000Classic Home Desserts

Classic Home Desserts

By Richard Sax

Published 1994

  • About

This warm sauce is adapted from a Charleston recipe; its winy flavor is characteristic of colonial desserts. It tastes warm and mellow when made with dry Madeira (Rainwater or Sercial, the driest), but sweeter Malmsey, sherry or port works well here, too.

Serve over plain cake or with fresh fruit or a steamed pudding.

Ingredients

  • ¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter, softened
  • ⅓ cup sugar, or less, if using a

Method

  1. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl until light.
  2. Pour the Madeira, sherry or port into a nonreactive saucepan and set over low heat. Warm the wine briefly, just a minute or two; watch carefully so it does not ignite. Add the warm wine and nutmeg to the butter mixture and beat until smooth.
  3. Serve the sauce warm, over spongecake or other plain cakes.</