Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Raspberry Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Mash the raspberries to a pulp and mix in the sugar until sweet.
Place the mixture over medium heat and bring to a simmer.
Gradually stir in the flour while continuously stirring.
Boil for a few minutes until thickened.
Serve
Serve warm or cold with cream.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Raspberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour and the pulp that forms the body of the sauce.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and balances the tartness of the raspberries.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as its starch swells when heated with the liquid.
The step that matters
Stirring in the flour. Flour added to hot liquid can clump into lumps if not stirred constantly and added gradually. Starch granules need to separate and disperse before they swell evenly and thicken the sauce 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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