Skip to main content
Sauce

Foaming- Sauce

A light sauce made from beaten egg whites, sugar, water, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Foaming- Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Dissolve the sugar in the water and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in the wine and then gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. 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.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 recipes

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

  3. Egg + winetop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into foam, they trap air and give the sauce its light, airy texture.
Sugar
Dissolves into the boiling water to add sweetness and help stabilise the sauce.
Wine
Adds acidity and flavour to balance the sweetness of the sugar.

The step that matters

Gently folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff egg white foam holds air only while intact. Vigorous stirring deflates it, so the sauce loses its lightness. Fold slowly and serve right away, since foam slowly collapses.

“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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesWine Sauce for Sweet PuddingsWine Sauce for Sweet Puddings6 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes