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Sauce

Cream Sauce

A simple sauce made from sugar, butter, heavy cream, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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. Beat together the sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the heavy cream and stir into the boiling water.

  3. Cook for a few minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Add your desired flavoring.

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

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 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

Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, when beaten with butter, helps it become smooth and well combined.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, rounded mouthfeel.
Heavy cream
Adds fat and body, making the sauce thicker and creamier.

The step that matters

Cook while stirring constantly. Stirring keeps the mixture moving so the dairy fats and sugar blend evenly and do not scorch or separate on the bottom of the pan while the sauce thickens.

“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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