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Dessert

Cream Sauce

A sweet vanilla-flavored sauce made from milk, eggs, flour, cornstarch, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs, flour, cornstarch, and powdered sugar together for three minutes.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk to the egg mixture, stirring continuously for two minutes.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir briskly until it boils.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and add the vanilla extract.

  2. Strain the sauce through a sieve into a serving bowl and serve.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Thicken the sauce as their proteins set when heated, giving it body and a smooth, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the hot milk, giving it body.
Cornstarch
Adds thickening power as its starch swells when heated, giving a smooth, glossy body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the thickeners set into a creamy sauce.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the eggs, giving a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Returning the mixture to the saucepan and stirring until it boils. Starch thickeners only reach full thickening once they boil, so the sauce needs to come to a boil while stirring to avoid lumps and a thin result. Stirring keeps heat even so the egg does not scramble on the base of the pan.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, sugar):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, sugar. 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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