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Cream Dressing

A creamy dressing made with sugar, vinegar, flour, eggs, mustard, butter, salt, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the sugar, flour, mustard, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Add the vinegar to the eggs.

  4. Add the melted butter to the eggs.

  5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick.

  2. Once cooled, gently fold in the whipped 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing as they cook and give it a rich, smooth body.
Flour
Stabilizes the cooked mixture and helps it thicken without going lumpy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavor.
Cream
Adds lightness and a soft, airy texture when folded in.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture in a double boiler until thick. Egg proteins set with gentle heat, so cooking slowly over simmering water thickens the dressing without scrambling the eggs. Too much heat can curdle it.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Mustardthe original
  4. Leekfits about as well

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