Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Strawberry Sauce, No. 1
Ingredients
Directions
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Mix in the stiffly beaten egg white and mashed strawberries.
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.
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
- Creams with the sugar to give the sauce a soft, smooth, rich body.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and, creamed with butter, helps trap air for a lighter texture.
- Egg white
- Whipped stiff, it adds air and a light, fluffy texture to the sauce.
- Strawberries
- Provide the main fruit flavour, color, and moisture in the sauce.
The step that matters
Folding in the stiffly beaten egg white. Whipped egg white holds air, and overmixing or beating it down with the strawberries deflates it, making the sauce dense instead of light and fluffy.
“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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