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Dessert

DarioleS, or Cream Cakes

A small puff pastry-lined custard cake made with egg yolks, flour, milk, lemon essence, sugar, and cream.

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

DarioleS, or Cream Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease small plain moulds with butter.

  3. Line the moulds with puff pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, beat the yolks of 6 eggs.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of flour, a little milk, lemon essence, and sugar to taste.

  3. Add 2 teaspoons of cream for each dariole and mix well.

  4. Fill the lined moulds, allowing space for rising.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 15 minutes until golden.

  2. Carefully turn out onto a napkin to serve.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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
Set the custard and add richness and colour to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape when baked.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture to the filling.
Cream
Adds fat for a softer, richer texture.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the lined moulds, allowing space for rising.. The filling expands as it heats, so overfilling can cause it to spill over the pastry edge. Leaving headroom lets it rise and set neatly in the mould.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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