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Sauce

Cream, White, and Foamy White Sauces

A sweet sauce made with water, sugar, cream, flour, vanilla, and optional butter or eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Evora Bucknum Perkins · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream, White, and Foamy White Sauces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Mix flour and sugar.

  2. Pour boiling water over, stirring.

  3. Boil up well.

  4. Add cream and a trifle of salt.

  5. Remove from fire and stir in vanilla.

Variations and notes

  1. For pineapple sago or tapioca, flavor sauce delicately with rose.

  2. Use milk in place of water.

  3. Serve plain, or flavor with orange, almond or lemon, and vanilla.

  4. Use 2 tablespoons of butter or the yolk of an egg.

  5. Use a half cup more of milk instead of the ½ cup of cream.

Finish with eggs

  1. Pour hot white sauce slowly, stirring, over whites of 2 eggs.

  2. Stiffly beat the eggs with half the sugar.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

327Calories
15 gProtein
19 gFat
26 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
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot 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 Evora Bucknum Perkins. 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

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

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

  2. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Flour (in the method)
Starch that thickens the sauce as it boils with the water.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and softens the flavor of the sauce.
Cream
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Eggs
Stiffly beaten whites lighten the texture when combined with the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour the hot sauce slowly over the egg whites. Adding the hot sauce slowly while stirring gradually warms the egg proteins, which keeps them from scrambling into lumps.

“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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