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Sauce

Foamy Sauce

A light, airy sauce made with butter, powdered sugar, eggs, sherry, 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 sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Foamy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Beat the butter and powdered sugar until very light and creamy.

  2. Add the eggs, which should be well beaten.

  3. Gradually mix in the sherry and nutmeg.

  4. Place the bowl over a boiling tea kettle, beating rapidly for 1 to 2 minutes until softened but not melted.

Serve

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving the sauce a light, fluffy body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Eggs
Add richness and, when gently heated, thicken the sauce into a foam.
Sherry
Adds acidity and wine flavour that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Warming over the boiling kettle. Eggs thicken when heated but scramble if they get too hot. Beating rapidly over the steam softens the mixture gently, so it should be removed as soon as it is warm and fluffy rather than left to melt or curdle.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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