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Dessert

Beignets a LA Dauphine

A fried brioche pastry filled with apricot jam, dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Beignets a LA Dauphine

makes 24 beignets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Roll out the brioche paste as thin as possible in a long square.

  2. Place 1 tablespoon of apricot jam, 2 inches apart, along the length of the sheet.

  3. Wet the paste slightly around the jam and fold the edge over it, pressing down to seal.

  4. Cut the beignets into half circles using a 2-inch round cutter.

  5. Place them on a floured surface and make 24 beignets.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry them in hot lard until they swell and turn golden brown.

  2. Drain on a napkin and sift sugar over them before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apricot + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,068 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Brioche + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together123 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Brioche + apricottop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brioche paste
Enriched dough that puffs and becomes soft and tender when fried.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and a fruity filling that turns jammy as the beignet heats.
Lard
Fries the dough quickly, giving a crisp, golden browned surface.

The step that matters

Sealing the paste around the jam. If the edges are not wet and pressed firmly, the seal can fail and jam may leak into the hot lard while frying.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brioche, flour, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Apricotthe original
  4. Peachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against brioche, flour, 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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