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Dessert

Pastry Cream

Custard of cream, cinnamon, lemon peel, flour, butter, eggs, sugar, orange flower water, and ratifias, cooled, cut, dipped in egg yolk, coated with breadcrumbs, fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Pastry Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Combine cream, cinnamon, lemon peel, flour, butter, egg yolks, beaten egg whites, sugar, and orange flower water in a saucepan.

  2. Heat over medium heat, stirring until it begins to thicken.

  3. Add ratifias and pounded citron, mixing well.

Shape and fry

  1. Let the mixture cool completely, then cut into desired shapes.

  2. Dip each piece into raw egg yolk, then coat with breadcrumbs.

  3. Fry in boiling lard until light golden brown, then drain and serve hot.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Cinnamon + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream
Provides richness and body so the mixture sets into a soft, creamy base.
Egg yolks
Thicken the mixture as they heat and add richness and a smooth texture.
Egg whites
Add air and volume to the mixture, giving it a lighter texture.
Flour
Helps thicken the mixture so it holds its shape when cooled and cut.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the mixture set with the eggs and flour.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and smoother, more tender texture.

The step that matters

Thicken the mixture gently over medium heat. Egg proteins set with heat, so heating too fast or too long can scramble the eggs and leave lumps. Stirring constantly keeps the cream smooth and thick enough to cool and cut.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, cinnamon, lemon, flour, butter, egg, sugar. 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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