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Dessert

Cream-crust, or Feuilletage

A pastry made from cream crust and cheese, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,608 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Cream-crust, or Feuilletage

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Sprinkle the grated cheese over the paste and fold it together.

  3. Roll it out very lightly twice until the cheese and crust are well mixed.

  4. Cut the mixture into small rounds using a paste cutter.

  5. Mix the egg yolk with a little milk and wash the rounds with this mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 15 minutes until golden.

  2. Serve very hot.

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. Parmesan cheese + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,608 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Cream + parmesan cheesetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,566 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Parmesan cheese + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream-crust or feuilletage pastry
Provides flaky layers that puff and separate as the pastry bakes.
Parmesan or dry white english cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a rich, toasty note to the pastry.
Egg yolk
Brushed on the rounds, it promotes deep golden browning in the oven.

The step that matters

Rolling the cheese into the paste. Rolling only lightly, and just until the cheese is evenly mixed, keeps the cheese distributed without overworking the paste. Overworking develops gluten and warms the fat, which can stop the layers from rising and flaking 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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