Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Puff-paste Rings
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the rings
Roll out puff-paste to ¼ inch thick.
Use a round, fluted cutter to stamp out large pieces.
Cut out smaller pieces with a smaller cutter and remove the centers.
Brush the large pieces with egg white.
Place a smaller ring on top of each large piece.
Bake and finish
Brush the tops with egg and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes.
Sift sugar over the baked rings and return to the oven to color.
Fill the rings with colorful preserves, marmalades, or jellies.
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Puff-paste
- Its layers of fat and dough puff into flaky, airy rings as they bake.
- Egg
- Egg brushed on the tops gives the rings a glossy, browned finish as they bake.
- Sugar
- Sifted sugar caramelizes in the oven, adding sweetness and a golden color to the rings.
- Preserves, marmalades, or jellies
- Fills the centers with sweet, fruity flavor and bright color.
The step that matters
Brushing the layers with egg. Egg wash must stay off the cut edges, since it can glue the layers together and stop the pastry from rising evenly. Brush only the top surfaces so the rings puff fully and brown well.
“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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