Fairy Butter

Name: Fairy Butter
Yield: Makes 1 cup
Ingredients: 4 large hardboiled-egg yolks; 5 teaspoons orange-flower water; 4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (preferably superfine); 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

This simple dessert sauce makes a tasty accompaniment to gingerbread—either dotted onto the surface before serving or passed around at the table.

The recipe here was adapted by culinary historian Nancy Carter Crump from one by Elizabeth Raffald in which she suggested letting the sauce “stand two or three hours” before rubbing it “through a cullendar upon a plate; it looks very pretty.” Maria Rundell included this recipe under the title Orange Butter in her 1808 cookbook, A New System of Domestic Cookery, noting that it pairs well with “sweet biscuits.”

Ingredients

4 large hardboiled-egg yolks

5 teaspoons orange-flower water

4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (preferably superfine)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

Directions

Mash the egg yolks with the orange-flower water. Add the sugar, and mix to a smooth paste.
Work in the butter until the mixture is smooth, and set aside in a cool place for 2 to 3 hours.
Press the butter through a strainer into a small serving bowl. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Makes 1 cup

Fairy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

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