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Dessert

Foaming Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, powdered sugar, egg, vanilla, whipped cream, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Foaming Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream together the butter, powdered sugar, and well beaten egg until smooth.

  2. Add the vanilla and mix well.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, gently fold in the whipped cream.

  2. Spread the sauce over pudding and sprinkle lightly with grated nutmeg.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Vanilla + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Egg
Thickens and enriches the sauce, giving it body and structure when creamed.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Whipped cream
Lightens the sauce with air, creating its foamy, airy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Whipped cream holds its air through trapped bubbles. Stirring it vigorously deflates it and loses the light foam, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Peppermintfits less well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

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