Name: Small Vols-au-vents, a LA Parisienne
Ingredients: 1 oz flour; 3 yolks of eggs; ½ pint boiling cream or milk and cream mixed; 1 oz butter; 2 oz sugar; a little store-flavouring or grated lemon rind; 1 oz vanilla

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Small Vols-au-vents, a LA Parisienne

Ingredients

Directions

Make small vols-au-vents according to the directions on page 361.
Ice the edges with fine sugar as soon as they come out of the oven.
Hold a salamander or heated shovel over the sugar until it melts and forms a pale glaze.
Prepare hot crème pâtissière and fill the vols-au-vents with it.
Serve immediately.

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.

Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,241 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the lemon

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

Raisinfits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Lemonthe original

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