Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Puff-paste Kings, or Puits D’ Amour
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 the rings
Make puff-paste according to the recipe.
Roll the puff-paste to a thickness of ½ inch.
Cut out large circles with a fluted cutter.
Rework the puff-paste.
Roll the puff-paste to a thickness of ½ inch again.
Cut out smaller circles.
Stamp out the center of the smaller circles.
Brush the large circles with egg white.
Place a small circle on top of each large circle.
Brush the tops with egg white.
Bake and fill
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).
Sift sugar over the baked pieces.
Return to the oven to color them.
Fill the rings with preserve.
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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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Puff-paste
- Its laminated layers of butter and dough puff into flaky, airy rings when baked.
- Egg white
- Brushed on as a glaze, it helps the tops brown and gives a glossy finish.
- Sifted loaf sugar
- Sifted over the baked pieces, it caramelizes in the oven to add sweetness and color.
The step that matters
Cutting and placing the small circles. Puff pastry rises only when its layers stay cold and unsmeared. Rerolling warm dough or pressing the cut edges can seal the layers, so the rings bake flat and dense instead of tall and flaky.
“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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