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White Mayonnaise

A creamy sauce made with cream, flour, vinegar, butter, sugar, salt, pepper, mustard, and egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

White Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a double boiler, combine cream, flour, white wine vinegar, butter, powdered sugar, salt, white pepper, and dry mustard.

  2. Cook while stirring constantly until thick and smooth.

  3. Just before removing from heat, fold in the whipped egg whites.

  4. If necessary, thin with additional cream.

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. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream
Forms the body of the sauce and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce structure.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and airiness to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
White wine vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the sauce a sharp, bright flavour.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites just before removing from heat. Egg whites are delicate, and folding them in at the end keeps their trapped air from collapsing under prolonged heat, so the sauce stays light.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, flour, white wine, vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, flour, white wine, vinegar, butter, sugar, mustard. 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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