Name: Strawberry Sauce
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 cup powdered sugar; 1 egg yolk; 1 cup crushed strawberries (or raspberries, peaches, or cherries)

Why it works: Butter and peach work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 860 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Strawberry Sauce

Ingredients

½ cup butter
1 cup powdered sugar
1 egg yolk
1 cup crushed strawberries (or raspberries, peaches, or cherries)

Directions

Make the sauce

Cream the butter with the powdered sugar until smooth.
Beat in the egg yolk.
Gradually mix in the crushed fruit.

Serve

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.

Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together860 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,308 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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

Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, creamy body to the sauce.
Powdered sugar: Sweetens the sauce and dissolves smoothly into the creamed butter.
Egg yolk: Emulsifies with the butter and adds richness and body.
Crushed strawberries: Supplies the main flavor and moisture, loosening the sauce.