Skip to main content
Dessert

Pastry Cream Sauteed and Fried

A pastry cream mixture cooked, cooled, cut, coated in eggs and breadcrumbs, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Pastry Cream Sauteed and Fried

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, mix the egg yolks and flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually stir in the boiling milk or cream.

  3. Place over heat, stirring until thickened.

  4. Add butter, sugar, ratafias, orange-flower water, and whole eggs; mix well.

  5. Continue stirring over heat until the eggs set.

  6. Pour into an oiled sauté pan and let cool.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut into pieces 1 inch wide and 2.5 inches long.

  2. Dip pieces in eggs and breadcrumbs twice.

  3. Sauté in hot oil until golden brown.

  4. Serve on a napkin, dusted with sifted 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Egg yolks
Thicken the custard as they set with heat, giving it a rich body.
Flour
Stabilises the custard so it thickens smoothly without curdling.
Milk or cream
Forms the liquid base of the custard, providing moisture and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, softer texture and flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it brown when fried.
Whole eggs
Add extra protein that sets the custard firm enough to cut and fry.

The step that matters

Let the custard set fully before cutting. Eggs set as they are heated, and the custard must be firm and cool enough to hold its shape. If cut while soft, the pieces will break apart when dipped and fried.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, butter, sugar. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes