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Strawberry Sauce for Short Cake

A sweet strawberry sauce made with powdered sugar, butter, egg, milk, and crushed strawberries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry Sauce for Short Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together.

  2. Beat the egg white until stiff and set aside.

  3. Add the beaten yolk to the butter and sugar mixture.

  4. Gradually add the milk while beating continuously.

Finish the sauce

  1. Fold in the crushed strawberries, then gently mix in the beaten egg white.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves smoothly into the butter for a fine texture.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a creamy body when creamed with the sugar.
Egg
Its yolk enriches and emulsifies the mixture, while the whipped white adds lightness.
Milk
Loosens the mixture into a pourable sauce with a smooth, creamy consistency.
Strawberries
Supply the main fruit flavor, color, and moisture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg white gently. The whipped egg white holds air that gives the sauce lightness. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, so the sauce turns dense and loses its airy texture.

“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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