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Dessert

Yellow Sauce

A sweet custard-like sauce made with egg yolks, cornstarch, sugar, butter, sweet milk, vanilla, and orange extracts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Yellow Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg yolks until light.

  2. Mix cornstarch with a little milk to dissolve.

  3. Combine sugar, butter, and sweet milk in a saucepan and heat over medium heat.

Make the sauce

  1. Stir in the dissolved cornstarch.

  2. Continue cooking until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Add vanilla and orange extracts to taste.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,371 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help thicken the custard as they set with heat.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, glossy sauce when heated.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the flavor of the milk and eggs.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel.
Sweet milk
Forms the liquid base that thickens into the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dissolved cornstarch and cooking until thickened. Cornstarch must be fully dissolved before it goes in, then stirred constantly while heating. Starch granules swell and thicken only as the mixture heats, and undissolved clumps stay as lumps.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, vanilla. 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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