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Sauce

Foam Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, egg yolk, egg white, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Foam Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sugar, butter, and egg yolk until well combined.

  2. Gently fold in the egg white, beaten to a stiff froth.

  3. Add flavoring to taste.

  4. Finally, stir in the boiling water.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and bulk, and helps stabilise the creamed mixture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, mellow body.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and emulsifies the butter and sugar into a smooth base.
Egg white
Whipped to a stiff froth, it adds airy lightness to the sauce.
Boiling water
Thins the mixture to a pourable sauce and dissolves the sugar.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg white. Whipped egg white holds air that gives the sauce its foam. Stirring it in vigorously knocks the air out, so fold gently to keep the sauce light.

“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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