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Cream Sauce

A sweet cream sauce made with butter, powdered sugar, white wine, vanilla, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

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 ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together until smooth.

  2. Just before serving, add the white wine, vanilla, and cream.

  3. Mix well and serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Provides richness and a creamy, smooth body to the sauce.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, loosening the sauce and making it silky.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the richness of the butter.
Vanilla
Adds a warm aroma that rounds out the sweetness.

The step that matters

Adding the liquids just before serving. Cream, wine, and butter are emulsions that can separate or turn grainy if the liquids are added too fast or the ingredients differ greatly in temperature. Adding them gently and mixing well keeps the sauce smooth until it is served.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Strawberryfits about as well
  3. Applefits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, white wine, 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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