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Sauce

Foaming Sauce

A sweet sauce made with butter, sugar, egg whites, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Foaming Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the unbeaten egg whites and mix until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the boiling water and stir until well combined.

  4. Place the mixture in a pan of hot water and heat until smooth.

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 + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. 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 fat, giving the sauce a smooth, creamy body.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness to the sauce.
Egg whites
Whipped into the mixture, they help trap air and give the sauce a light, foamy texture.
Boiling water
Dissolves the sugar and loosens the mixture into a smooth, pourable sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites. The egg whites are added unbeaten and must be mixed in until smooth. Stirring gently and fully incorporating them keeps the sauce smooth, while the heat from the water bath thickens and stabilises the foam.

“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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