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Dessert

Foamy Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, powdered sugar, egg whites, heavy cream, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Foamy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce base

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add powdered sugar while continuing to beat.

  3. Place the bowl over hot water and beat the mixture with a wire whisk.

  4. Add beaten egg whites gradually until the sauce reaches the consistency of heavy cream.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool.

Flavor and finish

  1. Flavor the sauce with vanilla.

  2. Fold in the whipped heavy cream just before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the creamed butter for a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Whipped foam that lightens the sauce and gives it an airy, foamy texture.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in at the end to add lightness and moisture.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites over hot water. Egg whites must be added gradually while beating over gentle heat so they thicken and foam without scrambling. Adding them too fast or letting the heat get too high can cook the proteins into lumps and leave the sauce grainy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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