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To Melt Butter

A method for melting butter using flour and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Melt Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix 1 teaspoon of flour with 4 ounces of butter on a plate.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a small saucepan.

  3. Add 2 to 3 tablespoons of hot water.

Boil and finish

  1. Boil quickly for 1 minute, shaking the saucepan continuously.

  2. If using milk instead of water, use slightly less butter for a whiter appearance.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Forms the rich fat base that is emulsified into the hot water, giving the sauce its body and flavor.
Flour
Thickens the liquid and helps stabilize the emulsion so the butter stays smooth rather than separating.

The step that matters

Boil quickly while shaking continuously. Butter and water are an emulsion that can separate if left still or overheated. Constant shaking keeps the fat dispersed in the liquid, while the flour helps hold it together.

“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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