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Strawberry Sauce

A sweet sauce made from butter, milk, strawberries, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and stir in the strawberries.

  3. Place the bowl in a basin of hot water.

Finish the sauce

  1. Gradually add the hot milk and cook for 2 minutes.

  2. 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  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. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 they warm gently, giving it body and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy texture when creamed with sugar.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps aerate the butter when creamed together.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that loosens the sauce and carries heat to thicken the eggs.
Strawberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and colour of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the hot milk gradually. Eggs thicken when heated gently, but adding hot liquid too quickly can scramble them. Pouring the milk in slowly while stirring lets the eggs warm evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

“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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