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Dessert

Puff-paste Rings, or Wreaths

Puff pastry rings dusted with sugar and topped with whipped egg white and jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg 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 Rings, or Wreaths

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Cut the rings

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ⅙ inch thick.

  2. Cut out 20 circular pieces, 1¾ inches in diameter.

  3. Cut out the center of each with a ¾ inch cutter.

Bake and decorate

  1. Place rings on a wet baking sheet and sprinkle with fine sugar.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until light in color.

  3. Decorate with whipped egg white and sugar, then sprinkle with coarse sugar.

  4. Insert strips of currant or apple jelly between the decorations.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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
Its many thin fat layers puff apart in the oven, giving the rings a light, flaky structure.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the pastry and caramelizes on the surface, adding browning and a crisp finish.
Whipped egg white
Its foamed proteins set when baked, forming a glossy base that holds the sugar decoration.
Currant or apple jelly
Adds fruity sweetness and a glossy, tart flavor between the decorations.

The step that matters

Bake until light in color. Sugar caramelizes and darkens quickly, so the rings can scorch before the pastry is fully baked through. Pulling them at a light golden color keeps the sugar sweet and the layers crisp.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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