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Silver Sauce

A clear, buttery sauce thickened with cornstarch, sweetened with sugar, optionally flavored with cinnamon or lemon peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,147 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Silver Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Bring the water to a boil.

  2. Blend the cornstarch with a little cold water, then stir it into the boiling water.

  3. Add the sugar and stir constantly for about 3 minutes until the mixture is transparent.

  4. If using, add the cinnamon stick or lemon peel to the sauce while it boils.

  5. Remove from heat, then add the butter and flavoring to taste.

  6. Strain out the cinnamon stick or lemon peel and serve hot.

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. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + walnuttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Cornstarch
Thickens the water into a smooth, glossy sauce as it heats.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the sauce its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in off the heat.

The step that matters

Stir the cornstarch into the boiling water. Cornstarch clumps if it hits hot liquid dry or unevenly. Blending it first with cold water spreads the starch out so it thickens smoothly instead of lumping.

“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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