Cream Sauces Always Rise to the Top

Whenever I turn on the news, it seems every story focuses on different groups who can't agree on anything. Whether it's partisan politics or incredibly tumultuous international affairs, there just aren't a lot of people agreeing about a lot of things these days.

But fear not! On at least one subject matter, just about everyone in the world shares the same opinion: we all love cream sauces. No matter what your politics, no matter where on earth you live, food lovers around the world are insane about the stuff -- and for good reason. What other simple combinations of basic ingredients can yield such a rich, comforting and satisfying effect when enjoying a wonderfully prepared dish?

This versatile sauce can stand alone or act as a base for other fantastic creamy sauces. The cream sauce has stood the test of time and has become one of the best-known, most-utilized sauces in the history of modern-day cooking. Can we all agree on that? Yes? Great, then let's move on.

The traditional cream sauce, or sauce à la crème, is derived from the grand sauce béchamel, one of the five mother sauces used in everyday cooking. In fact, all sauces are in some form a derivative of one of the mother sauces. Adding milk to a white roux (a mixture of clarified butter and flour that has the appearance of wet sand) and simmering until thickened creates béchamel, also known as "white sauce." The roux is then slightly cooked to eliminate the rawness of the flour. Once the béchamel is fully thickened and strained, double cream (cream reduced by half) is added to finish the sauce, which is then used on such dishes as poached fish, poultry, white meats, eggs and vegetables.

Ask an average consumer to name their favorite cream sauce and chances are they will answer "Alfredo." A lot of people think Alfredo sauce dates back thousands of years to the dawn of Italy, but it was actually the signature sauce of Alfredo di Lello, a chef in Rome in the 1920s. He perfectly merged heavy cream, butter, parsley and garlic to create an international sensation that seems to get more popular every year. Although technically made with cream, Alfredo sauce has a very different background and composition than Auguste Escoffier's classic sauce à la crème.

Some culinarians would argue that Alfredo sauce, or any reduced-cream sauce, which can contain 80% to 90% cream, should not be considered a cream sauce under Escoffier's definition of sauces. They would argue that reduction-type sauces would more commonly fall into a new category of sauces called "modern sauces." (Okay, so some disagreement does take place in the cream-sauce world ...) The cream sauce made from the béchamel base uses the white roux as its thickening agent.

Heavy cream contains about 40% butterfat. A membrane around the fat globules allows them to exist as discrete particles flowing freely in suspension. When heating or reducing cream, water evaporates causing the fat globules to rub against each other, creating friction, which in turn creates a thicker viscosity. The evaporation of water also concentrates the skim-milk solids, which further aids in the viscosity of the cream. The funny thing is, despite all these nuances and the fact that cream sauces and reduced cream sauces can vary so widely in recipe and execution, the average consumer still defines a cream sauce as simply a sauce made with cream.

Reduced-cream sauces should be considered more of à la minute-type sauces, meaning that, in the kitchen, they can be made to order as opposed to sauce à la crème, which is more of a completed sauce. A good way to describe reduced-cream sauce would be to say that the sauce is actually built with the components of the dish versus a completed sauce that is used to finish a plate.

So how do cream sauces manage to greatly enhance a meal? One explanation is that the fat from the cream coats the mouth, creating a very balanced taste effect -- even when incorporating very dominant ingredients. The fat takes the harshness out of highly spiced or flavored ingredients and melds them into a balanced sauce that connects the ingredients' flavor highs and lows.

Great cream sauces can be as simple as adding a teaspoon of reduced stock, such as glace de viande, a reduced brown meat (usually veal) stock. Visualize searing a couple of beef tenderloin medallions. The beef is added to a hot sauté pan and browned nicely on both sides. The medallions are removed and a portion of heavy cream or half-and-half is added to the hot sauté pan. This deglazes the pan and allows the ingredients to reduce to create the sauce. A teaspoon of the reduced stock is then added along with a combination of freshly chopped herbs and possibly some cracked black pepper. As the sauce reduces, the medallions are added back to the sauce to cook at the proper temperature.

The results are spectacular. Sauce prepared using this method also makes a great complement to poultry and wild game. You'll find the versatility of the cream is amazing and serves as a great go-to sauce. It can truly be a great resource for product designers around the world.

Restaurants across the nation and beyond are integrating cream sauces into their menus like never before. However, product designers should keep some key things in mind to help ensure that they execute cream sauces quickly and with the best possible results.

Here are a couple of suggestions: To speed up the reduction process, cook the cream to reduce it by half, creating double cream, which eliminates waiting for the water to evaporate and the sauce to thicken. The key to this execution is to make sure the sauce simmers long enough with the other ingredients to capture all the flavors. It must also simmer long enough to incorporate all that great fond on the bottom of the pan. Other ingredients can help with the thickening. Simply combine heavy cream, half-and-half and egg yolks. When the sauce temperature begins to increase, the egg yolks help the sauce thicken and also help prevent the sauce from becoming too rich, which can often occur if you're using excessive heavy cream.

Despite all the many wonderful things cream sauces bring to the table, the research chef or food scientist may encounter some challenges. Viscosity breaking down and a browning of the milk proteins, also known as Maillard browning, are some of the more common obstacles. This browning happens when dairy proteins and lactose sugars in the cream are heated during a retort step or kettle application. We also see the browning effects when cream sauces stay in a steam table for an extended period of time. The extended heat treatment slowly browns the proteins causing an undesirable appearance and taste.

Developers have many ways to go about preventing the browning from formulating with dairy. The list includes formulating with ultrafiltered dairy, so the sauce has less lactose to brown. Another option is adding ingredients such as sodium caseinate.

Viscosity issues can arise, too. It's important that the sauce doesn't get overprocessed. If it does, the membrane around the fat breaks and the fat coagulates. The sauce then thins out or has a broken appearance.

In a perfect world, we could all make cream sauces to our heart's content without any concern for cost or fluctuation in the butter market. But, as we all know, manufacturers and restaurants live in the very real world. With the costs of cream in such sauces as Alfredo directly related to the butter markets, keeping an eye on the bottom line is a never-ending worry. Depending on the butter market, heavy cream costs can fluctuate drastically. Remember, heavy cream contains 40% butterfat.

While the past can never truly be used to predict the future, if you were to look at the butter market for any given year, it would give a pretty good historical trend line when butter markets will be up and down. In an average calendar year for the butter market, January through March sees a steady increase, peaking more in the summer months and into early fall, mainly due to the increase in ice cream production. Late October through December sees the market correcting itself, as ice cream demand falls and butterfat is redirected to other products, such as actual butter. Simple supply and demand elevates prices.

Planning for swings in prices, and knowing the best time to lock in dairy will facilitate maximized returns. Unfortunately, markets can be unpredictable. For example, 2004 is an anomaly. The butter market skyrocketed causing a ripple effect all the way up the supply chain. The cost of dairy items has been driven up in all sectors of the food industry.

Butter markets have moved higher for several reasons. One of the more significant causes is that dairy prices over the last two years have been low compared to the average over the last five years. The lower prices put a squeeze on farmers, causing many to leave the industry or focus on other parts of agriculture. This resulted in a decline in the amount of milk produced. Compounding that effect was St. Louis-based Monsanto, which announced earlier this year that they were going to be rationing the amount of Posilac®, a hormone given to cows so they can produce more milk. The news of rationing caused cheese prices to soar to all-time highs. Butter prices rose to their second-highest level ever, too. Early reports showed butter production down 15%, which indicates a lower amount of milk being produced. Less milk production means less butterfat for other dairy products. Along with the shortage of milk, speculation of what could happen next to the butter markets instigated continued skyrocketing butter costs.

In the past, product designers used cream replacers when the markets went high and costs needed cutting. This isn't really the case anymore. From personal experience, some definite advantages to using a replacer on an ongoing basis exist. When bringing a cream sauce up from bench top to industrialization, you can control cost, viscosity and enjoy great stability in even the harshest processing environments.

Obviously, markets like 2004's can stress out a lot of people! One very attractive option developers now have to control the cost of cream -- and, as a result, the finished sauce -- is to use cream substitutes or replacers. This is especially ideal for those in the industrial and foodservice industries who usually buy their sauces through one- to two-year contracts. Instead of a price that fluctuates between highs and lows, the finished product is locked in. There's no doubt that cream replacers help reduce costs while maintaining a healthy margin for manufacturers, even when the market is moving up.

Different types of cream replacers are on the market. Manufacturers create most by controlling the amount of fat. Some manufactures reduce the amount of butterfat in the cream and add in other proteins or carbohydrates to take its place. Product designers can control the cost of the cream by removing butterfat and adding other functional ingredients. Adding starches, gums and other thickeners, such as modified whey, can help control the viscosity of the reduced-fat cream replacers. Other substitutes can be dairy by-products or even nondairy products.

Product designers have a number of considerations to look at when selecting a cream substitute for commercial or foodservice applications. For example, the wrong substitute may produce an off-flavor or a mouthfeel that differs from what's expected with heavy cream. I've had excellent results with Identi-cal Plus, a cream replacer developed here at Darifair, Jacksonville, FL, that is still 99½% dairy. The fat percentage is reduced to cut the cost but the product is indistinguishable from straight heavy cream both in texture and mouthfeel.

This type of replacer has some secondary advantages as well. It lets the manufacturer use less thickener on their end, because the fat is stabilized during the unique processing. This also virtually eliminates any concerns of Maillard browning, because this replacer product has a greater viscosity that helps hold sugars away from hot surfaces, which prevents them from browning. Because this product contains lower levels of gums and starches, manufacturers can save more money. Formulators also want to look for a replacer with freeze/thaw capabilities, which help keep the sauce looking like it was made fresh.

The savvy product developer builds controls into the system ahead of time rather than at the point when their company is losing dollars because of a rising butter market -- or because the finished sauce is not performing up to expectations.

Through the practice of Culinology(TM), research chefs and food scientists continue to raise the bar in terms of the quality and creativity of industrially produced products. The cream sauce is a great example of how something that is so simple in recipe takes difficult technology to create at the industrial level.

Cream sauces have been around for centuries and it's easy to see why. As basic as the recipe is, it has given birth to the most complex and creative sauces, resulting in generation after generation of avid cream-sauce fans.

The cream sauce acts and functions as a natural flavor enhancer that balances out almost any flavor combination. From spicy dishes, such as a spicy tasso cream sauce served over grouper, to alcohol-based sauces, such as a tequila-lime cream sauce tossed with shrimp and fettuccini, the cream sauce delivers a fantastic eating experience. I encourage everyone to use this wonderful sauce. Who knows? With a little magic and luck, you could be the next Alfredo di Lello. Wouldn't it be great for people to enjoy your creation for hundreds of years to come?

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