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Dessert

Genoese Pastry

A sweet pastry made with flour, butter, eggs, and sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Genoese Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Sift the flour through a fine sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar over hot water for 25 minutes.

  2. Gradually add the flour and melted butter alternately, stirring gently until combined.

Bake

  1. Line a shallow baking tin with buttered paper and pour the mixture into it.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 30 minutes.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Whisked with sugar to trap air, giving the sponge its light, airy structure.
Flour
Provides the starch that sets during baking, giving the sponge its structure.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb when folded in after melting.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps stabilise the whisked eggs for volume.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs and sugar over hot water. The eggs must be whisked until thick and pale so they hold a large amount of trapped air. Gentle heat helps the foam form and thicken. Under-whisking leads to a flat, dense sponge, while folding too vigorously knocks out the air.

“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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