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Dessert

Cream Sauce

A vanilla-flavored cream sauce made from milk, eggs, flour, corn starch, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream Sauce

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Cream Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the milk in a saucepan.

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl, then add the flour, corn-starch, and powdered sugar, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the boiling milk to the egg mixture, stirring continuously.

  4. Return the mixture to the saucepan and stir until it comes to a boil.

  5. Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla extract.

Serve

  1. Serve with puddings or other desserts.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Egg proteins thicken the sauce as they heat, giving it body and a smooth, custard-like texture.
Flour
Starch granules swell when heated in liquid, thickening the sauce and keeping it from being runny.
Corn-starch
Starch granules swell with heat and thicken the sauce, adding a silky, stable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, providing moisture, body, and richness.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling milk to the eggs. Pouring hot milk into eggs too quickly can scramble them. Adding it gradually while stirring gently raises the egg temperature so the mixture thickens smoothly instead of curdling.

“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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