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Dessert

Genoese Pastry

A sweet pastry made with eggs, sugar, butter, flour, and iced with icing sugar and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Genoese Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the sponge

  1. Whisk eggs and sugar over a saucepan of hot water for 20 minutes.

  2. Carefully add the melted butter.

  3. Add sifted flour. Do not stir after adding the flour.

  4. Spread the mixture onto a prepared baking tin.

  5. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 15 minutes.

Make the icing and finish

  1. For the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl.

  2. Add boiling water a little at a time until the desired stiffness is reached.

  3. Add lemon juice for flavor and color.

  4. Spread the icing with a knife.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light structure.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the sponge and helps stabilize the whisked egg foam.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the sponge.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that sets the sponge once baked.
Icing sugar
Forms the sweet, stiff icing that coats the sponge.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and brightness to balance the sweet icing.

The step that matters

Do not stir after adding the flour. Stirring after the flour is added develops gluten and deflates the whisked egg foam, making the sponge dense instead of light.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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