Split hollandaise

Which split you have

Grainy and scrambled-looking

Too hot. The yolk proteins have set into curds. The butter may still be emulsified around them.

Thin and oily, with butter separating out

Too fast, or too much butter for the yolk. The emulsion has broken but nothing is cooked.

Thick then suddenly loose

Overloaded — more butter went in than the yolks could hold.

Split on standing

Held too long, or held too hot. Hollandaise is a last-minute sauce.

Safety

A split sauce is a texture fault. Raw and lightly cooked egg is a separate food-safety question — follow Food Standards Agency guidance on which eggs are suitable and for whom.

Bringing it back

Works for the broken-emulsion kind, and partly for the overheated kind.

1. Take it off the heat immediately and stop adding butter.
2. Put a tablespoon of hot water — or a fresh egg yolk for a bad split — into a clean warm bowl.
3. Whisk the split sauce into it a teaspoon at a time to begin with, exactly as you added the butter originally.
4. Once it thickens and looks glossy, you can add the rest in a thin stream.
5. If it was overheated and grainy, push the rescued sauce through a fine sieve. The set curds stay behind.
6. A stick blender in a tall jug rescues most splits mechanically and is the least elegant reliable method.
7. Serve it at once. Rescued hollandaise is less stable than the original.

Avoiding it next time

• Gentle heat, always. A bowl over barely simmering water, not boiling, and not touching the water.
• Take the bowl off the heat periodically. The residual heat keeps working while you whisk.
• Warm butter, not hot. Melted and warm is right; sizzling hot cooks the yolk on contact.
• Slowly at the start. The first few spoonfuls of butter are where the emulsion is built. After that it can go faster.
• Do not overload it. One yolk holds a limited amount of butter — roughly 75 to 100 grams is a sensible ceiling.
• A little water or lemon juice in the yolks at the start gives the emulsion something to form around.
• Hold it warm, not hot. A thermos, or a bowl over water off the heat. Never on direct heat.

The same rules apply to its relatives

Béarnaise, choron, maltaise and mousseline are all hollandaise with something added, and all split the same way for the same reasons. The rescue is identical.

Beurre blanc is a different emulsion — butter in a reduced acid rather than in egg yolk — and it splits when it gets too hot or too cold. It is rescued by whisking cold butter into it off the heat, not by adding a yolk.

Mayonnaise is the cold cousin and splits for the same "too fast" reason, which is why the rescue is the same: start again with fresh yolk and add the broken sauce drop by drop.

Common questions