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Sauce

Velvet Sauce

A sweet sauce made from butter, powdered sugar, corn starch, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Velvet Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter until creamy.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and continue beating for 2 to 3 minutes.

  3. When the water boils, stir in the corn-starch blended with a little cold water.

  4. Stir and boil for 2 to 3 minutes until transparent.

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 + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Corn + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,168 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
Provides fat and richness, and when beaten creates a smooth, creamy texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and, when beaten into the butter, lightens the sauce's texture.
Corn-starch
Thickens the sauce as it boils, giving it body and a clear, glossy look.

The step that matters

Boiling the corn-starch mixture. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the liquid reaches a boil and is stirred. Stopping early leaves the sauce thin and cloudy, so it must boil until it turns transparent.

“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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