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Dessert

Petits Fours

Petits fours are small cakes made with flour, powdered sugar, butter, cream, and caraway seeds, cooked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Petits Fours

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a small bowl, mix the flour, powdered sugar, and salt.

  2. Stir in the cream and melted butter until combined.

  3. Add the caraway seeds and mix well.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat a waffle iron until hot.

  2. Spoon two tablespoons of batter into the waffle iron and close it.

  3. Cook until golden brown, then remove and cut into pieces.

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 + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to tenderness and browning.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, giving the batter a softer texture.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it cooks.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown. The waffle iron must be hot before the batter goes in, so the surface sets and browns evenly. Too little heat leaves the batter pale and soft, while too much can scorch the sugar before the centre cooks through.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Carawaythe original

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