Skip to main content
Dessert

Galettes

A yeast‑leavened dough made with household and Vienna flour, milk, butter, eggs, and sugar, shaped into cakes and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Galettes

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 the dough

  1. Sift the household flour into a bowl and mix it with the warmed milk, yeast, and sugar to form a soft dough.

  2. In another bowl, combine the Vienna flour, eggs, and butter, and beat together by hand.

  3. Once the yeast has risen for about 1 hour, combine the contents of both bowls and beat until well incorporated, about 20 minutes.

  4. Let the dough rise for another hour.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the dough into large oval cakes and let them prove for about 15 minutes until the tops crack.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Brush with a mixture of sugar and milk when half‑baked.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Household flour
Provides the main structure of the soft dough.
Vienna flour
Adds gluten strength and structure to the enriched dough.
Yeast
Makes the dough rise, giving it a light, airy texture.
Eggs
Add richness, structure, and colour to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavour.
Milk
Moistens the dough and helps it come together softly.

The step that matters

Beating the combined dough. Beating until well incorporated develops gluten so the enriched dough holds its shape and rises evenly. Under-beating leaves streaks of butter and uneven texture.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes