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Dessert

Maids of Honour

A flaky pastry filled with a rice flour custard flavored with almond essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Maids of Honour

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the custard

  1. Mix the rice flour smoothly with cold milk.

  2. Boil the remaining milk and stir it into the rice mixture.

  3. Return to the pan and let it thicken.

  4. Add sugar and butter, then let it cool.

  5. Once cool, mix in the beaten eggs and essence of almonds.

Bake and serve

  1. Line patty tins with flaky pastry and half fill with the mixture.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Rice + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth, set custard without wheat gluten.
Eggs
Add richness and help the custard set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning on the surface.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the rice flour thickens into custard.

The step that matters

Let the thickened mixture cool before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble or curdle, leaving a grainy custard. Cooling first lets the eggs blend in smoothly and set evenly when baked.

“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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