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Sauce

Foamy Sauce

A sauce made with butter, confectioner's sugar, egg, sherry wine, 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 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

Make the base

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the confectioner's sugar while beating constantly.

  3. Mix in the beaten egg and sherry wine.

Heat and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a double boiler and beat briskly while heating.

  2. Pour the sauce into a hot sauceboat and sprinkle with nutmeg.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the sauce its rich, smooth body.
Egg
Its proteins thicken gently with heat and help the sauce hold a light foam.
Confectioner's sugar
Dissolves smoothly into the butter, adding sweetness and a fine, creamy texture.
Sherry wine
Adds acidity and aromatic flavor that balances the richness of the butter and sugar.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture in the double boiler while beating briskly. Egg proteins set when they get too hot, so gentle indirect heat keeps the sauce from curdling or scrambling. Constant beating keeps the mixture smooth and incorporates air, which keeps the sauce light and foamy as it thickens.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

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