Skip to main content
Dessert

Fairy Fancies

A pastry of thin crust cut into rings and filled with various preserves, served with optional whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 23 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fairy Fancies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the pastry cases

  1. Obtain a small tin cutter set for pastry.

  2. Use short crust dough (page 349) rather than puff paste.

  3. Roll dough thin and even.

  4. Cut out a dozen or more small sheets with the larger tin.

  5. With two round cutters (one about 1 inch in diameter, the other half size), form four times the number of rings.

  6. Lay rings on sheets as shown.

  7. Raise each ring without removing the cutter, moisten with a camel's hair brush dipped in egg white, and lay on the paste as it loosens from the tin.

  8. Bake the pastry in a gentle oven until crisp but pale.

Fill and serve the cases

  1. Fill each of the four divisions of each fantaisie with a different preserve: apple or strawberry jelly, apricot jam, peach or green-gage, raspberry jelly.

  2. Optionally ice and ornament cases before baking.

  3. For best appearance, use white almond paste with pink or pale green rings, and fill at serving with whipped cream.

Make the fruit mixture

  1. Boil one pound unsalted ox-tongue until tender, then cut free from rind.

  2. Add two pounds fine stoned raisins.

  3. Add two pounds beef kidney-suet.

  4. Add two and a half pounds currants, cleaned and dried.

  5. Add two pounds good apples.

  6. Add two and a half pounds fine Lisbon sugar.

  7. Add half to one pound candied peel.

  8. Add grated rinds of two large lemons.

  9. Add two more boiled items, chopped up entirely except the pips.

  10. Add two small nutmegs.

  11. Add half an ounce salt.

  12. Add a large teaspoonful pounded mace.

  13. Add rather more ginger powder.

  14. Add half a pint brandy.

  15. Add as much good sherry or Madeira as desired.

  16. Mince these ingredients separately.

  17. Mix the other ingredients well before adding brandy and wine.

Store

  1. Press the mixture into a jar or jars and keep closely covered.

  2. Store for a few days before use; it remains good for many weeks.

  3. Optional: add cloves, lemon juice, or more brandy.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

95Calories
1 gProtein
2 gFat
23 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 8 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Macenot in our table0
Brandynot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Ox-tongue
Forms the cooked meat base that gives the mixture its body and bulk.
Raisins
Add sweetness, chewy texture and moisture to the filling.
Beef kidney-suet (in the method)
Adds fat that keeps the mixture moist and rich.
Currants (in the method)
Contribute sweetness, chewiness and dried-fruit body.
Sugar (in the method)
Adds sweetness and helps preserve the mixture during storage.
Brandy
Adds aroma and helps preserve the mixture.

The step that matters

Bake the pastry in a gentle oven until crisp but pale. High heat browns and toughens the pastry before it is fully dried through. A gentle oven dries and sets the thin dough slowly, keeping it crisp and pale rather than dark or hard.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, brandy, lemon, nutmeg, ginger, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, brandy, lemon, nutmeg, ginger, clove. 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.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes