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Sauce

Foamy Sauce

A light sauce made from butter, sugar, egg white, boiling water, and wine or vanilla.

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

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and continue beating.

  3. Incorporate the well-beaten egg white.

  4. Stir in the boiling water.

  5. Add the wine or vanilla and mix well.

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Provides richness and, when beaten, holds air for a creamy base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the beaten butter become light and fluffy.
Egg white
Its beaten foam traps air, giving the sauce a light, foamy texture.
Boiling water
Adds moisture and thins the sauce to a pourable consistency.
Wine or vanilla
Adds aroma and flavour that rounds out the sweet sauce.

The step that matters

Incorporate the well-beaten egg white. Beaten egg white traps air that gives the sauce its foamy lightness. Overmixing or stirring it in vigorously deflates those bubbles, so fold it in gently until just combined.

“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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