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Dessert

Whip Cream Fruit Salad Dressing

A creamy dressing made with butter, flour, vinegar, egg yolks, and whipped cream for fruit salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Whip Cream Fruit Salad Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing

  1. Cream the butter with the flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks.

  3. Slowly add the scalded milk and then the vinegar.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.

  5. Transfer to a deep bowl and beat until creamy with a fork.

  6. This dressing can be stored indefinitely.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, whip the cream and mix in 3 tablespoons of the dressing, beating well.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during cooking and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the dressing a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Flour
Thickens the dressing along with the egg yolks as it cooks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances its sweetness.
Whipped cream
Adds airy volume and a light, creamy texture to the finished dressing.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat and constant stirring let the yolks and flour thicken the mixture smoothly.

Swap the mustard

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

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

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