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Dessert

Vanilla Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, sugar, corn starch, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and stir until light and creamy.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, moisten the corn starch with a little cold water.

  2. Pour in 1 pint of boiling water and cook over heat until clear.

  3. Stir the hot mixture into the butter and sugar until thoroughly mixed.

  4. Add the vanilla and serve.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Corn starch
Thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks and becomes clear.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and, creamed with butter, helps give a light texture.

The step that matters

Cook the corn starch until clear. Corn starch must reach a boil with the liquid to fully swell and thicken. Stirring it in cold water first prevents lumps, and cooking until clear shows the starch has gelatinised and will hold the sauce's body.

“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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