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Dessert

Vanilla Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, water, sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine butter, water, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture.

Temper the eggs

  1. Remove from heat and gradually pour the hot mixture into the beaten eggs, stirring constantly.

Thicken and finish

  1. Return the mixture to low heat and stir until thickened, preferably in a bowl set over boiling water to prevent curdling.

  2. Add the vanilla extract, then serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Eggs
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set with gentle heat, giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the sauce rich and smooth on the palate.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the richness of the eggs and butter.
Vanilla extract
Adds aromatic flavor that rounds out the sweetness.

The step that matters

Tempering the eggs. Pouring the hot mixture into the eggs slowly while stirring constantly warms the eggs gradually. If heat is added too fast, the egg proteins set in lumps and the sauce curdles instead of thickening smoothly.

“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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