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Sauce

Cobalt Foam Sauce

A sweet, buttery sauce made with boiling water, sugar, butter, cornstarch, vinegar, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cobalt Foam Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine boiling water and sugar in a saucepan. Stir until dissolved.

  2. Add butter and cornstarch, mixing well until smooth.

  3. Stir in vinegar.

  4. Remove from heat and gently fold in the beaten egg just before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves into the hot water to form the sauce base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sugar.
Egg
Whipped egg folded in adds an airy, light foam to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg gently, just before serving. Whipped egg traps air in its proteins. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, and continued heat can cook the egg, so it should be folded in gently and served right away.

“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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