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Sauce

Melted Butter Sauce

A simple sauce made by whisking butter, flour, cold water, and salt, then adding optional flavorings and egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Melted Butter Sauce

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Melted Butter Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pan, combine butter, flour, cold water, and salt.

  2. Whisk over gentle heat until the sauce thickens and becomes frothy.

  3. If desired, add sugar and vanilla or lemon for flavor.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg white and serve immediately.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Adds richness and a smooth, buttery flavour to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as it heats with the liquid.
Egg white
Folded in at the end to add lightness and a frothy texture.

The step that matters

Whisk over gentle heat until thickened. Flour needs gentle, steady heat and constant whisking to thicken smoothly without lumps or scorching. Once the starch swells, the sauce thickens, so heating too fast can cause lumps or burn the bottom of the pan.

Swap the vanilla

The recipe marks vanilla as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, sugar, lemon, egg):

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, lemon, egg. 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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