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Croquant Paste for Covering Preserves

A paste made from sugar, water, flour, and egg white, used to cover preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour 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 ↓

Croquant Paste for Covering Preserves

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the paste

  1. Dissolve the sugar in enough cold water to make a paste with the flour.

  2. Knead and beat the mixture until smooth.

Shape and cut

  1. Roll the paste to the size of the croquant form and about ½ inch thick.

  2. Grease the form with beef suet and press it into the paste to cut the pattern.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven.

  2. Brush the paste with beaten egg white and sprinkle fine sugar on top.

Cover and store

  1. Gently remove the paste from the tin while warm and place it over the fruit to cover.

  2. Store the cover in a dry place for reuse.

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Flour + beeftop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + eggtop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 main structure of the paste, which sets firm as it bakes.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour so it forms a smooth, workable paste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the baked surface turn crisp.
Egg white
Brushed on top to give the baked paste a glossy, set finish.

The step that matters

Bake in a low oven. A low oven at 300°F dries the paste slowly so it sets firm and crisp while staying pale. Higher heat would brown the surface before the interior dries, so the paste would be less even.

“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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