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Sauce

Drawn Butter or Cream Sauce

A sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, cooking, then gradually adding hot milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 1 ingredients
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Drawn Butter or Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Melt a large heaping tablespoonful of butter.

  2. Stir into it a heaping teaspoonful of flour.

  3. Let them cook together without browning.

  4. Add by degrees a cup of hot milk.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter (in the method)
Adds fat and rich flavor, and carries the flour into a smooth base.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot liquid.
Milk
Forms the liquid that becomes the sauce once heated and thickened.

The step that matters

Add the milk by degrees. Adding hot milk gradually to the cooked butter and flour lets the starch granules disperse and hydrate evenly. This keeps the sauce smooth instead of lumpy.

“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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