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Sauce

Butter Sauce

A sweet butter sauce made by beating butter and powdered sugar, thickened with starch, and flavored with brandy, maraschino, wine, lemon juice, zest, vanilla, or other.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Butter Sauce

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

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Stir the butter with a fork until it becomes a light cream.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and continue to beat for 1 to 2 minutes.

  3. Just before serving, mix in your choice of flavoring.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. 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
Provides richness and a smooth, creamy body as it is creamed with the sugar.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the sauce and, when beaten with butter, helps give it a light, smooth texture.

The step that matters

Add the flavoring just before serving. Flavorings such as brandy or wine are volatile and can fade when held, and adding them late keeps their aroma fresh. Adding them too early can also thin or change the texture of the creamed butter.

“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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