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Dessert

Meringue Sauce

A sweet sauce made from sugar syrup and beaten egg whites, flavored with sherry or vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Meringue Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. Combine water and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Cook the mixture until it threads.

Finish the sauce

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form.

  2. Pour the syrup over the beaten egg whites while mixing.

  3. Add sherry or vanilla extract to taste and mix well.

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. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sherry + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,141 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sherrytop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that gives the sauce its light, airy structure.
Sugar
Cooked into a syrup that sweetens the sauce and helps stabilise the foam.
Sherry or vanilla extract
Adds aroma and flavour to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Pouring the syrup over the beaten whites. The hot syrup partly cooks the egg white proteins and sets the foam. Pour it in a slow, steady stream while beating so the whites stay smooth and do not deflate.

“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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