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Dessert

Cream Dressing II

A creamy dressing made with mustard, cayenne pepper, salt, melted butter, flour, egg yolk, powdered sugar, vinegar, and thick cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Dressing II

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dressing base

  1. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

  2. Add the melted butter, egg yolk, and vinegar slowly while stirring.

  3. Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.

Finish the dressing

  1. Cool the mixture, then fold it into the whipped thick cream.

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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 yolk
Thickens the dressing and adds richness as it cooks and sets.
Flour
Thickens the cooked base so it holds body when cooled.
Thick cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped and folded in.
Vinegar
Adds the sharp acidity that balances the richness of the cream and egg.
Melted butter
Adds fat for smoothness and a rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook over boiling water, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens. Egg yolk thickens only when gently heated; if the heat is too high or stirring stops, the yolk can scramble and the dressing turns lumpy. Constant stirring keeps the heat even so the mixture thickens smoothly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, butter, flour, egg, sugar, vinegar, cream):

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Mustardthe original
  3. Shallotfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, flour, egg, sugar, vinegar, cream. 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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