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Cream Dressing

A creamy dressing made with cream, mustard, sugar, butter or olive oil, egg yolks, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,067 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Dressing

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, mix the sugar and butter (or olive oil).

  2. Add the egg yolks, cream, and vinegar to the mixture.

  3. Cook over hot water, stirring, until the dressing thickens.

  4. Strain the dressing 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. Mustard + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the dressing as they set during gentle cooking, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the dressing's texture.
Butter or olive oil
Adds fat, giving the dressing richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharpness of the vinegar.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that gives the dressing its tangy flavour.

The step that matters

Cook over hot water, stirring, until the dressing thickens. Egg yolks thicken as their proteins set with heat. Too much heat or no stirring can scramble them into lumps, so gentle, constant stirring over hot water is needed.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Mustardthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Chivefits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, butter, egg, vinegar. 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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