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Beignets Flamands

Fried dough pieces flavored with lemon zest and brandy, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Beignets Flamands

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Place the flour on a table and make a well in the center.

  2. Add the eggs, lemon zest, salt, powdered sugar, and brandy into the well.

  3. Knead the mixture until the dough is firm.

  4. Divide the dough into pieces the size of an egg.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out each piece and cut into strips about 1 inch wide, leaving 1 cm at each end uncut.

  2. Before frying, alternate lifting the first and third strips while letting the middle strips fall.

  3. Carefully place the beignets in hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  4. Drain on a towel and serve hot, dusted with sugar.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the shaped strips together.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the hot oil.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the dough.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. Oil that is too cool lets beignets soak up grease and turn heavy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks. Placing them carefully keeps the oil temperature steady and avoids splashing.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, brandy):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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