Name: Puffs a LA Flora
Ingredients: puff paste; lemon curd; raspberry jelly; beaten egg white; pounded sugar; crystallized rose leaves or violets (optional); whipped cream (optional); dried fruits (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Puffs a LA Flora

Oven, in the book's wordsA sharp oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Roll out the puff paste thinly and cut into squares of 3 to 4 inches.
Brush the corners with beaten egg white and fold them to meet in the center.
Flatten them out with a rolling pin without rolling them too thin.
Place them folded-side down on a board and add a bit of lemon curd in the center.
Top the curd with a spot of raspberry jelly, egg the edges, and fold over to form triangles.
Sprinkle with cold water and roll in pounded sugar.
Bake in a sharp oven at 400°F (200°C) until they open out.
If desired, place crystallized rose leaves or violets in the openings, or use whipped cream and sprinkle with dried fruits.

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.

Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,109 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Raspberry + rosetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,174 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Raspberry + creamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,332 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Swap the lemon

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

Vanillafits better
Strawberryfits better
Peachfits about as well
Lemonthe original

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