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Dessert

Darioles of Parmesan

Small pastry cups filled with a Parmesan custard baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Darioles of Parmesan

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter about ten small dariole moulds.

  3. Roll out the pastry as thinly as possible and line the moulds.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter, then stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Add the milk and boil for three minutes.

  3. Stir in the cheese, salt, pepper, and beaten eggs.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the moulds three-quarters full with the mixture.

  2. Bake for 20 minutes.

  3. Carefully turn out and serve hot on lace paper.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pepper + parmesan cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Enriches the flour paste and adds richness to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the melted butter and milk into a smooth, set base.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a sauce.
Eggs
Set during baking to give the filling structure and a firm texture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savoury, salty flavour and a nutty aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Fill the moulds three-quarters full. Overfilling can cause the mixture to spill over and bake unevenly, while underfilling leaves too little custard to set into a full shape.

“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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