Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with eggs, vinegar, butter, and whipped heavy cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mustard and vinegar 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 ↓

Fruit Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. In a bowl, slightly beat the eggs.

  2. Add salt, cayenne pepper, dry mustard, sugar, and cornstarch.

  3. Mix until very smooth.

Cook the dressing

  1. Heat the vinegar until hot.

  2. Gradually add the hot vinegar to the mixture while beating continuously.

  3. Return the mixture to the stove and stir until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and add butter.

  5. Beat until very light and cool.

Finish

  1. 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. Mustard + vinegartop 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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

  5. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the dressing and give it a rich, creamy body as they set with gentle heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the dressing during cooking so it holds texture when cooled.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its richness and sweetness.
Heavy cream
Adds lightness and softness when folded in, mellowing the sharpness of the vinegar.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Gradually add the hot vinegar to the mixture while beating continuously.. Adding hot liquid too quickly to beaten eggs can scramble them. Adding it slowly while beating tempers the eggs so the mixture stays smooth and thickens evenly.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sugar, vinegar, 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes