Name: Butter Sauce {Mrs. Youmans}
Ingredients: ¾ cup butter; 1½ cups powdered sugar; 4 tablespoons boiling hot starch (flour or corn starch); brandy, maraschino, wine, lemon juice and zest, vanilla, or other preferred flavoring

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Butter Sauce {Mrs. Youmans}

Ingredients

¾ cup butter
1½ cups powdered sugar
4 tablespoons boiling hot starch (flour or corn starch)
brandy, maraschino, wine, lemon juice and zest, vanilla, or other preferred flavoring

Directions

Stir the butter with a fork until light and creamy.
Add the powdered sugar and beat for 1-2 minutes.
Just before serving, stir in the boiling starch and your chosen flavoring using an egg whisk.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,127 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + brandytop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Creaming with sugar traps air and gives the sauce a light, smooth, rich body.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the sauce and dissolves easily, giving a smooth texture without grittiness.
Starch: Thickens the sauce when heated, giving it body and a glossy, spoonable texture.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling starch. Starch must be boiling hot and stirred in just before serving so it thickens the butter mixture evenly. Adding it cold or too early can leave lumps or a thin, uneven sauce.

“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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Butter Sauce {Mrs. Youmans}