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Dessert

Plain Cold, Hard Sauce

A chilled, sweet sauce made from sugar, butter, and optional fruit or egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Plain Cold, Hard Sauce

Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Plain Cold, Hard Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Stir together the sugar and butter until creamy and light.

  2. Add flavoring to taste.

  3. For a fruity version, beat in the strawberries or raspberries and the beaten egg white.

Serve

  1. Serve chilled.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, when creamed with butter, helps trap air for a light texture.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and a smooth, creamy body.
Ripe strawberries or raspberries
Add fruity aroma, flavor, and moisture, with a touch of acidity.
Egg white
Adds foam and lightness when beaten into the fruity version.

The step that matters

Creaming the sugar and butter until light. Sugar crystals cut into the butter and trap air, which gives the sauce a light, smooth texture. If the butter is too cold or the mixing is too brief, the sauce can turn out grainy and dense.

“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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