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Cream Dressing

A sweet and tangy dressing made with butter, flour, sugar, salt, mustard, eggs, water, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Melt the butter and flour together in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sugar, salt, and mustard.

  3. Stir in the eggs, then add the water and vinegar.

Cook the dressing

  1. Pour the mixture into the saucepan with the butter and flour.

  2. Stir continuously until the dressing thickens.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + mustardtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,066 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Thicken the dressing and add richness as they set with heat.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter so the dressing becomes smooth and body-rich.
Vinegar
Adds sharpness that balances the sweetness and richness of the dressing.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the acidity of the vinegar.

The step that matters

Stir continuously until the dressing thickens. Egg proteins can scramble and curdle if the mixture overheats or sits still, while constant stirring keeps heat even. Flour starch also settles on the bottom of the pan and can scorch if not moved.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

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