Skip to main content
Sauce

Cobalt Foam Sauce

A sweet, buttery sauce thickened with cornstarch and finished with egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cobalt Foam Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, combine boiling water and sugar. Stir until dissolved.

  2. Add butter and cornstarch, mixing well until smooth.

  3. Stir in vinegar and cook until thickened.

  4. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Finish and serve

  1. Whip the egg and fold it into the sauce just before serving.

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. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Provides sweetness and dissolves into the water to form the sauce base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the sauce its body.
Egg
Whipped and folded in to add lightness and a foamy texture.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Fold the whipped egg in just before serving. Whipped egg foam collapses over time and with heat, so folding it in at the last moment keeps the sauce light and airy.

“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.

You might also like

Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)Wine Sauce (for stewed fruit)186 recipesCaper SauceCaper Sauce180 recipesBrown SauceBrown Sauce141 recipesDutch SauceDutch Sauce74 recipes