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Butter Sauce with Eggs

A butter sauce made with eggs, sugar, flour, and clarified sugar, flavored with nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter Sauce with Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauces

  1. Dissolve a pint of sugar in a little water.

  2. Cream a teacup of butter and the yolks of two eggs.

  3. Add the dissolved sugar, set on the stove to boil slowly, stirring almost constantly; add any preferred flavoring.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine one coffee cup of clarified brown sugar, a ... of butter (size of an egg), and one level tablespoon of flour dissolved in a little cold water; mix well together.

  5. Stir in a coffee cup of boiling water; let boil until the consistency of cream; flavor with nutmeg or lemon.

  6. Beat a cup of butter until creamy, then gradually beat in two cups of powdered sugar; add a gill of sherry by spoonfuls; beat until a smooth, light froth forms.

Serve

  1. Set the bowl in a basin of boiling water and stir for a minute and a half; keep the sauce bowl heated by the boiling water.

  2. When the sauce is finished, empty the bowl of water, pour the sauce into it, grate nutmeg over the sauce, and serve hot.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

696Calories
20 gProtein
19 gFat
109 gCarbs

Counts 5 of 6 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Coffeenot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Fayette (Mo.). Baptist Church, Ladies of the. 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. See the original page.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the creamed butter and add richness and body to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the brown sugar mixture so it becomes a creamy consistency when boiled.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture to the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter, adding sweetness and a light texture.

The step that matters

Boiling the brown sugar mixture to a creamy consistency. Flour thickens only when it is heated and cooked through, so the sauce must boil long enough to lose any raw starch taste and reach a smooth, creamy body.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, coffee, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, coffee, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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