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Dessert

Sauce for Strawberry Shortcake

A creamy sauce made with butter, sugar, eggs, water, cream, sherry, and salt.

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

Sauce for Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Beat together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the egg yolk and beat for several minutes.

  3. Whisk in the frothed egg white and boiling water.

Cook and finish

  1. Cook over a steaming kettle for about two minutes.

  2. Heat the cream before adding it to the egg mixture.

  3. Keep the sauce hot, but do not cook it further.

  4. Season with salt and flavor with sherry.

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

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

  3. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg yolk
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a custard-like body.
Egg white
Whipped to a froth, it adds lightness and airiness to the sauce.
Cream
Contributes richness and a silky texture to the finished sauce.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps balance the richness of the butter and cream.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce hot, but do not cook it further. Egg yolks thicken when heated, but past a gentle temperature they can curdle or scramble. Holding the sauce warm rather than boiling it keeps it smooth and pourable.

“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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