Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓
Strawberry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
In a bowl, beat the sugar and butter together until creamy.
Thoroughly mash the strawberries and add them to the mixture.
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.
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and helps give it a smooth, creamy body when beaten with butter.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a smooth, creamy texture.
- Strawberries
- Provide fruit flavour, aroma and moisture to the sauce.
The step that matters
Beating the sugar and butter until creamy. Beating works air into the fat and sugar, and sugar crystals help cut into the butter, so under-beating leaves a grainy, dense base.
“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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