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Dessert

A Galette

A buttery pastry made from flour, butter, salt, egg yolks, and cream, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Galette

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, work ¾ lb of butter into 1 lb of flour until well combined.

  2. Add ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt and mix.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine 2 egg yolks with ½ cup of cream (or water) and mix into the flour mixture to form a paste.

  4. Roll the dough into a round shape, about ¾ inch thick.

Bake and serve

  1. Score the top in small diamond shapes and brush with egg yolk.

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

  3. Serve hot or cold.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the galette together as it bakes.
Butter
Creates flaky layers and richness as it melts and steams in the oven.
Egg yolks
Add richness and bind the dough, and the glaze browns the top.
Cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the dough tender and easier to shape.

The step that matters

Brush with egg yolk before baking. The egg yolk glaze gives the top an even golden browning. Brushing it on evenly prevents pale patches and keeps the scored diamond pattern visible.

“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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