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Sauce

Foamy Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, confectioner's sugar, egg, sherry wine, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,645 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Foamy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the confectioner's sugar while beating constantly.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg and sherry wine.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler and beat briskly while heating.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce into a hot sauce boat and sprinkle with nutmeg.

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 + winetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sherry + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,246 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add rich, smooth body to the sauce.
Confectioner's sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter for a fine texture.
Egg
Emulsifies with the butter and thickens gently when heated, giving the sauce its body.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat briskly while heating in the double boiler. Egg proteins thicken gently over moderate heat but can scramble if the mixture gets too hot. Constant beating spreads the heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth and foamy.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, sherry, wine. 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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