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French Pastry

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Red currant and raspberry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 155 recipes. Both carry ethyl benzoate, which smells fruity, sweet. The science ↓

French Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

  1. Roll out puff pastry to ¼ inch thick.

  2. Cut into diamond, round, and square shapes.

  3. Gather the corners of the squares into the middle and stamp with a small round cutter.

  4. Stamp the diamonds and rounds with three small round cutters placed side by side.

  5. Place all shapes on a baking sheet lined with paper.

  6. Lightly dust with powdered sugar.

  7. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes, adjusting for heat.

  8. Once baked, remove from paper and fill the stamped areas with various jams and jellies.

  9. Arrange the pastry on lace papers in silver or glass dishes, forming a pyramid.

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. Red currant + raspberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  2. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  3. Apricot + raspberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

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

  4. Apple + raspberrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Red currant + apricottop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together58 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, apple, apricot, raspberry. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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