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Sauce

Melted Butter

A sauce made by melting butter with cream or milk and flour until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Melted Butter

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 ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the butter into small pieces and place in a clean saucepan.

  2. Add the cream or milk and dredge the flour over the mixture.

Make the melted butter

  1. Hold the saucepan over the fire and toss it quickly while the butter melts.

  2. Continue until the mixture thickens to the consistency of very thick cream.

  3. Let it just boil, then remove from heat.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 the fat and rich flavour that forms the base of the sauce.
Cream or milk
Adds liquid and moisture so the butter emulsifies into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the mixture as it heats, giving it a body like very thick cream.

The step that matters

Tossing while the butter melts. Constant movement spreads the heat evenly and keeps the butter from separating or scorching on the bottom of the pan before the flour and cream thicken it.

“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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