Hollandaise sauce is one of the five mother sauces in French cooking along with espagnole (brown sauce- like demi-glace), Veloute (made with white stock), Bechemel (cream sauce), and tomato.

While I was reading the 1998 James Beard Award winning cookbook Cookwise. While reading the section on emulsion sauces I stopped at the hollandaise recipe and reread three times. This recipe was slightly different then the way I was taught to make it. So I decided to look up the recipe for hollandaise sauce in other cookbooks that are highly trusted:
1. Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Julia Childs
2. The Joy of Cooking 75th anniversary, Rombauer
3. Sauces, James Peterson 1991 James Beard Award Cookbook of the Year
4 How to Cook Everything, Mark Bittman, 2009 James Beard Award General Cooking

Each book suggests a different ratio of egg yolks to butter. Sauces and the Joy of Cooking recommend using clarified butter (milk fats removed) and the other books recommend using all of the butter. Julia Childs recommends adding a Tablespoon of cold butter after heating the egg yolks so stop the yolks from continueing to cook. The Joy of Cooking also suggests adding a dash of hot sauce and cookwise says to add cayanne pepper. How to Cook does not recommend adding water to help stabelize the emulsion while whisking.

Whichever recipe you decide to look up and follow will still be delicious, especially if you use the freshest and highest quality ingredients. I'm looking forward to making Eggs Benedict in the morning and using a local hand made butter I found at a Trickle Springs Creamery, Chambersburg. (It looks like Julia Childs recipe has the most butter in her hollandaise recipe, I think I'll follow her recipe this time)