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Sauce

Cream Sauce

A sweet, thickened milk sauce flavored with sugar, egg whites, nutmeg or cinnamon, and vanilla or bitter almond essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scald the milk.

  2. Add sugar and cornstarch, stirring for three minutes.

  3. Fold in the stiffened egg whites, spices, and flavoring.

  4. Keep hot, but not boiling, by placing it in a vessel of hot water until ready to serve.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg whites
Stiffened whites trap air when folded in, giving the sauce a light, airy texture.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it heats, giving the sauce body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the sauce is built on and gives it its creamy character.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to the sauce's body.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel when used in place of milk.

The step that matters

Keep hot, but not boiling. Boiling can scorch the milk and break down the cornstarch thickening, and it can deflate the folded egg whites, so holding the sauce in hot water keeps it warm and smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, cream, sugar, egg, vanilla):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Peppermintfits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, cream, sugar, egg, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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