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Sauce

Melted Butter

Melted butter is butter softened with flour and milk to a creamy consistency.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Melted Butter

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Melted Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the butter into small pieces in a pint saucepan for easier melting.

  2. Add the flour and milk to the saucepan with the butter.

Cook

  1. Place the saucepan over low heat and stir continuously until the mixture begins to shimmer.

  2. Let it stand quietly.

  3. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Provides fat and rich flavor, and melts to form the base of the mixture.
Flour
Starch thickens the melted butter and milk as it heats, giving body to the mixture.
Milk
Adds liquid and moisture, combining with the starch to form a smooth, thin sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring over low heat. Flour starch can clump or scorch on the pan bottom if left unstirred. Constant stirring over gentle heat keeps the mixture smooth and evenly heated as the starch thickens.

“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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