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 ↓
Hard Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Beat the sugar and butter together until creamy.
Add the beaten egg whites and mix for a few more minutes.
Chill in the refrigerator before serving.
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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Sugar + buttertop 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the sauce and, beaten with butter, helps create a light, creamy texture.
- Butter
- Provides fat and richness, and beating it with sugar traps air for a creamy body.
- Egg whites
- Add air and volume when beaten, giving the sauce a lighter, fluffier texture.
The step that matters
Chill in the refrigerator before serving.. Chilling lets the butter firm up again so the sauce sets to a thick, spoonable consistency rather than staying soft and runny.
“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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