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Glazed Apricot Tarts

A pastry tart topped with glazed apricots and apricot kernels.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and apricot are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Glazed Apricot Tarts

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 crust

  1. Prepare a bottom crust as for cakes.

  2. Wrap a thicker strip of puff pastry around the crust, ensuring the ends overlap by 2 inches and are sloped evenly. Lightly wet the ends before sealing them together.

  3. Sprinkle fine sugar on the bottom of the tart.

  4. Arrange 24 apricot quarters on top of the sugar, avoiding spillage on the pastry band.

  5. Brush the pastry band with beaten egg.

Bake

  1. Bake in a clear oven at 400°F (200°C) for 10 minutes.

  2. Check if the pastry rises evenly.

  3. If not, loosen with a knife and return to the oven.

Make the syrup and topping

  1. Boil 8 large apricots in 4 ounces of sugar and a glass of water until tender, then drain and remove skins.

  2. Reduce the syrup until thickened.

  3. Crack the stones and blanch the kernels.

Finish and serve

  1. Place the boiled apricots on the tart with the reddest side up, adding the kernels between them.

  2. Just before serving, drizzle the tart with the syrup.

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 + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 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

Apricots
Provide the fruit flavour and the soft, juicy filling on top of the tart.
Puff pastry
Forms a rising, flaky band around the crust that holds the fruit in place.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps the apricots caramelise slightly as they bake.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on the pastry band promotes browning and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Check the pastry rise in the oven. Uneven rising of puff pastry can leave the band lopsided. Loosening it with a knife and returning it to the oven lets the layers puff evenly and set properly.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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