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Dessert

Whipped Cream Sauce

A light sauce made by whipping cream with lemon or vanilla, powdered sugar, and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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 ↓

Whipped Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine the cream, lemon juice or vanilla, and powdered sugar.

  2. Whip the mixture until frothy, without skimming off the froth.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg white and mix until well combined.

Serve

  1. Serve over any pudding that is typically enjoyed with sugar and 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Heavy cream
Provides fat and body, whipping into a light, airy foam that gives the sauce its texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the cream, so it blends smoothly without grittiness.
Egg white
Adds lightness and volume when beaten and folded in, making the sauce fluffier.
Lemon juice or vanilla extract
Adds acidity or aroma, brightening the sweetness and flavouring the sauce.

The step that matters

Whip only until frothy, then fold in the egg white gently. Overwhipping cream past soft peaks turns it grainy and can cause it to separate into butter. Folding the beaten egg white gently keeps the air bubbles intact, so the sauce stays light instead of deflating.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg. 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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