Skip to main content
Sauce

Dutch Sauce

A sauce made from egg yolks, butter, cream, lemon juice, and salt, cooked over a double boiler.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Dutch 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 ↓

Dutch Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine egg yolks, butter, cream, lemon juice, coarse sea salt, and salt in a saucepan or earthenware jar.

  2. Place the jar in a pot of boiling water, ensuring the water comes about three-quarters up the sides of the jar.

  3. Whisk the mixture continuously until the sauce is smooth and has a creamy consistency.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the sauce stay smooth and creamy.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and balances the richness of the yolks and butter.

The step that matters

Whisking over the water bath. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat, but if they get too hot they scramble. Keeping the jar in simmering water and whisking constantly spreads heat evenly and keeps the sauce smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, cream. 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.

You might also like

Hot Lemon Cream SauceHot Lemon Cream Sauce11 recipesWine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipes