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Sauce

Blue Grass Sauce

A sweet sauce made with brown sugar, butter, egg yolks, cream, and flavoring.

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

Blue Grass Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine brown sugar and butter.

  2. Add egg yolks and beat until very light.

  3. Stir in cream or rich milk.

  4. Heat the mixture over hot water, stirring constantly until it foams.

  5. Add your choice of flavoring and serve immediately.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Provides sweetness and a molasses-like depth of flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture.
Egg yolks
Emulsify and thicken the sauce as they warm, giving body and richness.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and fat, producing a softer, creamier sauce.

The step that matters

Heating over hot water. Egg yolks thicken gently at moderate heat but can scramble if overheated. Constant stirring over hot water, not direct heat, keeps the sauce smooth while it thickens and foams.

“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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