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Sauce

Melted Butter

A sauce made by melting butter, adding flour, milk, and water, then simmering until thick.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut the butter into small pieces for easier melting.

  2. Combine the butter, flour, and milk in a clean saucepan. Mix well, then add the water.

  3. Hold the saucepan over the heat, shaking it almost constantly until it begins to simmer.

  4. Let it stand quietly until it boils up, achieving a thickness similar to good cream.

  5. If the butter separates, add a spoonful of cold water and stir until combined.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Melts to form the fat base that gives the sauce its richness and smooth body.
Flour
Thickens the sauce as its starch swells in the heated liquid.
Milk
Adds liquid and milk solids that contribute to the sauce's creamy texture.

The step that matters

Shaking the saucepan over heat until it simmers. Constant shaking keeps the butter and liquids moving so they blend evenly and do not scorch or separate on the bottom of the pan.

“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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