Skip to main content
Breakfast

Buttered Eggs

Eggs cooked in butter with a touch of milk or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Buttered Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add salt and pepper. Mix well.

  2. Weigh 1½ ounces of fresh butter and divide it into two equal portions.

  3. Cut one portion into small pieces and place the other in a small saucepan over low heat.

Cook the eggs

  1. Pour the egg mixture into the saucepan and whisk continuously until it begins to thicken.

  2. Add the small pieces of butter one by one, stirring constantly until lightly set.

  3. Remove from heat and add the velouté milk or cream before serving.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide the protein that thickens and sets into a soft, creamy structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky texture while enriching the flavour of the eggs.
Velouté milk or cream
Adds moisture and loosens the texture, keeping the finished eggs smooth.

The step that matters

Whisking over low heat while the eggs thicken. Egg proteins set quickly when heated. Low heat and constant whisking keep the curds small and creamy, while higher heat or stopping can make the eggs grainy or scrambled.

“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.

More butter eggs recipes

Brown 9on Toast 3 See all 17 →

You might also like

Rice GruelRice Gruel28 recipesPeptoned Milk GruelPeptoned Milk Gruel9 recipes