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Dessert

Cherry, Blueberry, Blackberry or Strawberry Sauce

A simple fruit sauce made with sugar, butter, boiling water, cornstarch, and crushed berries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 98,233 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Cherry, Blueberry, Blackberry or Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the boiling water and place in a double boiler.

  3. When it boils, stir in the cornstarch dissolved in a little cold water.

  4. Heat thoroughly, then remove from heat and stir in the crushed fruit.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Butter + cherrytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,531 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Sugar + cherrytop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,598 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, glossy body.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the fruit.
Crushed fruit
Provides the main berry flavour, colour and fruity body to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and a rounded, smooth mouthfeel to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the cornstarch. Cornstarch must be dissolved in cold water first and added once the liquid boils, so it thickens evenly. Added dry or to cold liquid, it clumps and stays grainy.

Swap the cherry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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