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Custard Patties

Custard patties are puff pastry rounds filled with custard and topped with whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla 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 ↓

Custard Patties

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick and cut into 3-inch rounds.

  2. Use a smaller cutter to press halfway through each round to create a border.

  3. Place the rounds on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

Fill the patties

  1. Remove the centers and place 2 candied cherries in each round.

  2. Fill with stiff custard, sweetened and flavored to taste.

Top and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then add sugar and flavoring.

  2. Pipe the whipped egg whites on top of each patty using a piping bag.

  3. Return to the oven until the tops are browned.

  4. Serve warm or cold.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla 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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Thin layers of dough separate and crisp in the oven, forming the shell.
Stiff custard
Provides a thick, creamy filling that the pastry shell holds.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that sets and browns on top of the patties.
Sugar
Sweetens the whipped topping and helps the whites hold their foam.
Candied cherries
Add sweetness and bright color to the filling.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff. Under-whipped whites will not hold a peak and can slump into the custard or brown unevenly. Over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy and may crack in the oven. Stop when the peaks stand firm and glossy.

“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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