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Beignet Souffles

A fried dough made from butter, flour, eggs, and water, piped into hot fat and served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Beignet Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir the flour smoothly into the melted butter.

  3. Gradually add the water and boil for two minutes, stirring constantly.

  4. Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition.

Fry and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a large plain tip.

  2. Pipe short lengths of the mixture into hot fat and fry for about eight minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Adds fat and richness, and helps give the dough a tender texture.
Flour
Forms the starch base that thickens with the water and gives the dough structure.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help the dough puff and set as it fries.
Water
Hydrates the flour and, when boiled, gelatinises its starch to form the dough.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Eggs must be added one at a time and beaten well between additions so the dough emulsifies smoothly. Adding them too fast can break the mixture, leaving it greasy or too loose to hold its shape in the hot fat.

“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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