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Sauce

Corn Starch Pudding Sauce

A sauce made from egg, corn starch, butter, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,345 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Corn Starch Pudding Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg well in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve the corn starch in a small amount of water.

  3. Add the dissolved corn starch, salt, and butter to the beaten egg and stir until very light.

Make the sauce

  1. Place the mixture in a heatproof bowl and set it in a basin of hot water on the stove.

  2. Pour in the boiling water while stirring continuously.

  3. Let it come to a boil and flavor to taste.

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. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  2. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Egg + corntop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,484 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg
Beaten egg adds richness and body, and helps thicken the sauce as it heats.
Corn starch
Swells when heated in liquid, thickening the sauce into a smooth, pourable consistency.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich mouthfeel and smooth flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Pour in the boiling water while stirring continuously. Cornstarch clumps if it meets hot liquid without constant stirring. Keeping the mixture moving spreads the starch evenly so it thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

“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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