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 ↓
Confectionery Paste in Colours
Ingredients
Directions
Make the paste
Combine flour and egg whites to form a smooth paste.
Dissolve gum dragon in a small glass of water and add to the paste.
Shape and dry
Roll out the paste to ⅛ inch thickness.
Cut desired shapes with a knife.
Dry the pieces in the stove.
Assemble and decorate
Join pieces with the same paste mixed with gum water as cement.
Color some paste as desired for molding and borders.
Use colored sugar to sand the ground work and decorate with spun sugar.
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.
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 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
- Flour
- Forms the bulk of the paste and gives it body for rolling and cutting.
- Egg whites
- Bind the flour into a smooth, elastic paste that holds its shape when dried.
- Gum dragon
- Adds stiffness and binding so the dried pieces hold their shape and can be joined.
The step that matters
Drying the pieces in the stove. Drying must remove moisture slowly and evenly; too much heat can brown or crack the pieces, while incomplete drying leaves them soft and unable to hold shape.
“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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