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Foamy Sauce
1/2 cup butter 1 cup confectioners' sugar 1 egg 2 tablespoons hot water 1 teaspoon vanilla Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, the egg, well beaten, and the hot water. Heat over hot water, beating continually until it thickens. Add the vanilla and serve.
A foamy sauce is hard sauce taken one step further: the same creamed butter and sugar, lightened with egg and warmed until it thickens into a pourable foam for steamed or baked puddings.
- The hinge: gentle heat onlySet the bowl over barely simmering water, not boiling, and never let the bowl touch the water. Beat without stopping; if the egg sets before the sauce emulsifies you get sweet scrambled egg with butter floating on top.
- How thick is thickThe sauce is done when it mounds briefly on the beater and coats a spoon, roughly the consistency of loose whipped cream. This is a sabayon-style thickening and may take several minutes of steady beating.
- Egg temperatureIf you want certainty about the egg, beat until an instant-read thermometer shows 160F, or use a pasteurized egg.
- Confectioners' sugarThis is powdered sugar, generally cut with a little starch by this period, and the starch helps stabilize the foam. Sift it if lumpy.
- ButterUse unsalted butter at true room temperature, soft enough to cream but not melting. A pinch of salt sharpens the sweetness, which is considerable at one cup of sugar to half a cup of butter.
- Yield and servingSomething over a cup, enough for six to eight servings of pudding. Serve within a few minutes of finishing; the foam deflates and the butter tends to separate as it cools.
- Flavor variationsThe vanilla can be replaced with a tablespoon of rum, brandy or sherry, stirred in off the heat; spirits were a common flavoring for pudding sauces.