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Sauce

Fruit Mayonnaise

A creamy sauce made from butter, flour, sugar, milk, egg yolks, vinegar, and fruit juice, served over fruit.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Fruit Mayonnaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, rub together the butter and flour.

  2. Add the sugar and salt, then stir in the milk and beaten egg yolks.

  3. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thick.

  4. Remove from heat and beat thoroughly.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the vinegar and thin with fruit juice or Maraschino cherry juice.

  2. Serve the mayonnaise on top of fruit, garnished with a spoonful of whipped cream.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set and add richness and a smooth texture.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the custard holds its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the custard.
Whole milk
Forms the liquid base that the yolks thicken into a custard.
Vinegar
Adds a touch of acidity that brightens the sweet custard.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until thick. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if overheated. Gentle heat with constant stirring lets the yolks thicken the custard evenly and smoothly.

“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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