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Sauce

Melted Butter

A simple butter and cream mixture heated until melted, optionally thickened with flour.

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

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 ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Melt the butter

  1. Combine butter and cream in a saucepan.

  2. Shake the saucepan over a clear fire until the butter is completely melted.

  3. Shake it in one direction only; do not place the saucepan directly on the fire.

Alternative method

  1. Alternatively, mix a little flour with a large piece of butter on a clean plate.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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
Provides the fat that melts into a smooth, rich liquid, carrying flavor.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the butter's texture as it melts.

The step that matters

Shaking the saucepan over the fire. Butter is a mix of fat, water and milk solids. Gentle, even heat melts it smoothly, while direct heat can scorch the milk solids and cause the fat to separate.

“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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