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Sauce

Foamy Sauce II

A light, sweet sauce made with butter, sugar, eggs, lemon, vanilla, and milk, thickened over a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Foamy Sauce II

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the sauce

  1. Cream the butter.

  2. Add sugar, egg yolks, and milk.

  3. Cook over 400°F (200°C) water until thick, stirring constantly.

Finish and serve

  1. Add flavoring, pour slowly over stiffly beaten egg whites, and beat thoroughly.

  2. Serve at once.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Lemon + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the sauce.
Eggs
Yolks thicken the sauce as it cooks, and whites are beaten to add lightness and foam.
Sugar
Sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Milk
Provides liquid that cooks with the yolks into a thick, creamy base.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cook over water until thick, stirring constantly. Egg yolks set when heated, so constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth and prevents it from curdling or scrambling before it thickens.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, vanilla, milk. 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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