Sugar in hollandaise sauce and/or mayonnaise?

[CoalTit]

I had eggs benedict in a fancy garden centre café and wondered if the muffin or the spinach had been accidentally contaminated with icing sugar. Eventually I worked out that it was the hollandaise sauce.
A week beforehand an elderly aunt had said she makes mayonnaise with sugar.
Is this normal? Is this something that's come from the USA? I know other people who make their own mayonnaise and they don't put sugar in it.

I have NEVER heard of egg based sauces with sugar!

I don’t put sugar in. Surely if that was your vibe it would work better with sweetened bread like brioche than sugar in hollandaise?

It's a really weird thing to do. I bought garlic mayo a few weeks back and had to bin it because it was inexplicably sugary. I'm diabetic and don't eat much sugar, so it really leaps out at me when something's sweet, and while the total amount of sugar I'd be taking in through garlic mayo would be negligible, I just couldn't get on with sugary garlic mayo

... she makes mayonnaise with sugar .. Is this something that's come from the USA?

I don't think so. It's pretty common for US people to complain that things that are purely savoury in the USA contain sweeter elements when produced/sold in Europe - guacamole produced in Europe often contains sugar or cream, for example, which it never would in the US/Mexico. Salsa (the chunky Mexican/Latin American kind, not in its core meaning as "sauce") can often seem sweeter in Europe than in NA.

For mayonnaise specifically, there is a branded US product ("Miracle Whip") which is like mayonnaise but noticeably sweeter - it's still used as savoury, for example on a ham and cheese sandwich - but Americans generally make a distinction between it and regular mayo/aioli, etc.

Icing sugar - I think that's the same as "confectioner's sugar" in the USA - seems very strange for a savoury sauce; it's VERY sweet!

I googled a bit and saw that the olive oil will turn bitter if you beat the mayonnaise too fast or hard, so I suppose it might be a cook's quick workaround. But my expensive treat (the eggs benedict) was ruined by the level of sweetness.
At the next place where I saw eggs Benedict on the menu, I asked if there would be sugar in the hollandaise sauce. They said "barely any", but I didn't risk it, in case their idea of barely any sugar was my idea of disgustingly sweet.

Did you not mention it at the time 🤷🏻‍♀️

Is that a question?
No, I didn't.

Yes it is a question
Why not? if you’re served something that doesn’t taste right surely you mention it at the time? 🤷🏻‍♀️

Custard? It's a sauce

if you’re served something that doesn’t taste right surely you mention it at the time? 🤷🏻‍♀️
I'm asking on here to find out if it's typical or if anyone can tell me more about sugar in egg-based sauces. I don't see the relevance of my reasons for not acting as you believe I should have.

You don't make mayo with olive oil (you use vegetable oil), neither do you make hollandaise or bernaise sauce with olive oil (you use classified butter).

No, hollandaise and bernaise do not have sugar in them, the French word cry if they heard about this.

But with that being said it could have been an accident where they put sugar instead of salt to season, or it could have been what the head chef wanted.

Bernaise sauce is:
•salt and pepper (maybe a slight bit of paprika or cayanne for a smoky note)
•White wine vinegar reduction made with tarragon and shallots
•Clarified butter
•egg yolk

Hollandaise sauce is essentially bernaise but lemon juice instead of the wine reduction

Hope this helped,
Jav

You don't make mayo with olive oil (you use vegetable oil), neither do you make hollandaise or bernaise sauce with olive oil (you use classified butter).

I confess I don't make mayonnaise at all, but the Spanish people I know make it with olive oil. They don't put sugar in, though.
I gather that proper hollandaise sauce is quite complicated, and I suspect the chefs in the two places in question were using some quick-and-dirty version.

I am in Oz and find some of the shop bought mayo horribly sweet. So I either stick to Hellman's or make my own, and I never trust a shop bought sandwich.

Yeah countries will have different versions of things so you saying the Spanish make it with olive oil didn't sound surprising to me.

Olive oil is generally quite a strong flavour and mayo is neutral flavoured sauce, as such veg oil is better for mayo due to its neutral flavour profile, plus it's traditionally made with veg oil in France.

Maybe the chefs were using some short cuts but who knows 🤷...

I was at a Bob and Bert's and had similar. It was so so sweet and horrible.

I make mayo with half EVOO and half neutral oil. I find full on EVOO can leave a bitter overtone that someone could conceivably try to fix with sugar (yuck). I lived in America for a while and yes, the vile mayo sub Miracle Whip is sweet and tastes like it contains sugar.

But Hollandaise? As PPs said, this is a butter, lemon and egg sauce. There should be no bitter tone and no cause for adding sugar. Again, yuck

Icing sugar and confectioner’s sugar are just normal sugar, ground down more.

Funnily, my experience is that US food is much sweeter than European, eg bread, other main dishes can be oddly sweet. Corn syrup being used to make sweet things much sweeter.

There are some commercially manufactured mayos and Hollandaise, tartare, etc that include sugar and I agree, they're awful. I would never use sugar in my egg & oil or butter sauces.

Yes, icing sugar = powdered sugar. I think icing sugar us ground sugar mixed with corn flour? It is much softer than even the most finely pulverised sugar. And you use proportionately more of it.

Icing sugar=powdered sugar=confectioner’s sugar

Yes I live in the US now and I am always surprised by how sweet everything is (and brightly colored). Things like coleslaw, drinks, bread, everything really has more sweetness to it.

You can make icing sugar in a food processor if you run out. Icing sugar is just sugar. (And a tiny bit of anti caking agent, but basically just sugar.) You can use it in place of other sugar if you weigh it.

I wonder did they add too much lemon and put in some sugar instead of making a new batch. Either that or it was going off and they wanted to hide the taste.

Thank you, @CindersAgain Bon Apetitit magazine says the commercial stuff is mixed with a small amount of corn flour but you are basically correct. Maybe my blender isn’t up to much.