Why it works: Egg and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Puff-paste Rings
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 the rings
Roll out the puff-paste to ¼ inch thick.
Use a round, fluted cutter to stamp out large circles.
Use a smaller cutter to cut out the centers of half the large circles.
Brush the large circles with egg white.
Place the smaller rings on top of the large circles.
Brush the tops with egg.
Bake and finish
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15-20 minutes.
Sift sugar over the baked rings.
Return the rings to the oven to color.
Fill the rings with preserves, marmalades, or jellies.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Good puff-paste
- Its laminated layers puff up in the oven, giving the rings their light, flaky structure.
- Egg
- Brushed on as a glaze, it promotes browning and a glossy finish on the pastry.
- Sugar
- Sifted over the baked rings, it caramelizes in the oven for sweetness and color.
The step that matters
Returning the rings to the oven to color. Sugar caramelizes and browns quickly at high heat, so the rings can scorch if left unattended. Watch closely and remove them as soon as they reach an even golden color.
“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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