Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Bread Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the sauce
Pour boiling water over the bread crumbs and new milk in a bowl.
Cover with a plate and let sit for 20 to 30 minutes.
Transfer the mixture to a clean saucepan and add salt, mace, cayenne, and butter.
Stir constantly over medium heat for a few minutes.
Mix in the cream and bring to a boil.
Serve
Serve immediately.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Bread + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Milk + macetop 17% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,346 recipes
Shared aroma: sabinene (woody, terpenic).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Fine bread-crumbs
- Soak up the liquid and swell into a thick, smooth body that gives the sauce its texture.
- New milk
- Softens the crumbs and adds moisture and a mild, creamy richness to the sauce.
- Fresh butter
- Adds fat for a smooth, glossy mouthfeel and rounds out the flavour.
- Good cream
- Adds richness and a silkier texture at the end of cooking.
The step that matters
Stir constantly over medium heat. Starch from the soaked crumbs can settle and scorch on the bottom of the pan, and constant stirring keeps the sauce smooth and evenly thickened.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, milk, butter, cream):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Celeryfits about as well
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against bread, milk, butter, cream. 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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