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Sauce

Cream Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, sugar, cream, boiling water, and optional flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the cream and stir until smooth.

  3. Pour the mixture into the boiling water and stir constantly on the stove for a few minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and add 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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.
Powdered white sugar
Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly, adding body when beaten with butter.
Rich cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the sauce silky and pourable.

The step that matters

Pouring the mixture into the boiling water. Stirring constantly while the butter-sugar-cream mixture heats keeps it from separating or clumping, so the sauce stays smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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