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Sauce

Hot Cream Sauce

A hot sauce made from cream, sugar, butter, corn starch, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Hot Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil the cream with the broken nutmeg and sugar.

  2. Mix the corn starch with a little cold milk and stir it in.

  3. Cook until thick, then whip in the butter and strain.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Corn + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides the main body and richness of the sauce.
Corn starch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, set texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a glossy finish and a rounder, silkier mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the richness of the cream.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic flavor infused into the hot cream.

The step that matters

Cook until thick. Starch only thickens fully when it reaches a boil and is kept stirring, so stopping early leaves the sauce thin, while overcooking can cause it to break down and turn thinner again.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, butter, corn. 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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