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Dessert

Sabayon

A sweet custard-like pudding made with egg yolks, sugar, wine, and butter, finished with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: White wine and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Sabayon

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Thicken the mixture, then remove it and work it vigorously until smooth.

  2. Return it to the fire and let it boil for 5 minutes, then take it off the heat.

  3. When it has cooled slightly, add lemon sugar and yolks one at a time, along with a piece of butter.

Make the pudding

  1. Once well mixed and light, fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites.

  2. Pour into a large buttered and floured mold.

  3. Place the mold in a stewpan with water up to half its height.

  4. Steam the pudding on a very slow fire or in a slack oven for 40 minutes.

Serve

  1. Turn it out onto a dish and mask with the Sabayon sauce.

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. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the base and whites lighten the pudding so it holds its shape.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the pudding and helps stabilise the egg mixture.
White wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the sauce base.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly whipped whites trap air that makes the pudding light. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, white wine, butter):

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Plumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, white wine, butter. 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.

More sabayon recipes

Sauce 11 See all 5 →

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