Name: Beignets a LA Creme
Ingredients: vanilla or orange-flower cream; flour; 1 egg white, beaten; sugar; grated lemon peel; crumbs of stale Savoy or Naples biscuits

Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Beignets a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Make a vanilla or orange-flower cream and add a little flour to thicken it.
Pour the cream onto plates to cool, then cut it into lozenges.
Dip each lozenge in the beaten egg white.
Sift sugar and grated lemon peel over them.
Sprinkle crumbs of stale Savoy or Naples biscuits on top.
Fry the lozenges until golden brown.
Serve hot, with additional sugar sifted over them.

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.

Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Vanilla + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together422 recipes

Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).
Flour + biscuittop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together889 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Lemon + biscuittop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together697 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,241 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Swap the lemon

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

Raisinfits better
Blueberryfits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vanilla, flour, egg, sugar, biscuit. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.