Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Beignets Glaces
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Mix flour, cream, egg yolks, and curd until a thick batter forms.
Rub a plate with butter and pour the batter onto it.
Let it settle and cool.
Fry and glaze
Cut into squares and fry until golden brown.
Sift sugar over the fried squares and glaze with a hot salamander.
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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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).
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
- Flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the batter together as it sets.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness, giving the set batter a tender texture.
- Egg yolks
- Their proteins set on cooling and add richness and structure to the batter.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and, when heated, helps the glaze form a sweet coating.
The step that matters
Let the batter settle and cool fully before cutting. As the batter cools, its starch and egg proteins set, firming it. Cutting too early gives soft, misshapen squares that break apart in the hot fat.
“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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