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Dessert

French Pastry

A boiled and baked pastry filled with preserves or whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

French Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Boil the butter and cold water in a saucepan.

  2. Once boiling, stir in the flour and sugar, cooking until the mixture leaves the sides of the saucepan.

  3. Remove from heat and beat in each egg separately.

Shape and bake

  1. Dip a knife and two teaspoons in hot water.

  2. Shape the mixture like eggs.

  3. Place them on a greased baking sheet, spaced apart.

  4. Bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

Finish and serve

  1. Once done, open the sides and fill with preserves or whipped cream.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Eggs
Bind the paste and give the baked shells structure and lift.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets the cooked paste and gives the shells their body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and softens the texture of the paste.
Cold water
Provides the liquid that turns to steam in the oven, helping the shells puff.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the shells brown during baking.

The step that matters

Beat in each egg separately. Adding eggs one at a time lets each one fully blend into the paste, so the mixture stays smooth and can hold its shape. Adding them all at once can cause the paste to split or turn runny, and the shells may not rise properly.

“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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