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Pastry Sandwiches

Pastry sandwiches made with puff pastry, jam, egg white, and sifted sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and sugar 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 ↓

Pastry Sandwiches

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly.

  2. Place half of the pastry on a baking sheet and spread the jam evenly over it.

  3. Cover with another layer of thin pastry, pressing the edges together.

  4. Mark the surface with a knife to indicate where to cut after baking.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  2. Shortly before done, remove from the oven, brush with egg white, and sprinkle with sifted sugar.

  3. Return to the oven to color.

  4. Once cooled, cut into strips and serve piled on a dish.

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. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 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

Puff pastry
Forms flaky layers that puff and crisp as it bakes, enclosing the filling.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor, and its sugars help the surface brown.
Egg white
Brushed on top, it helps the sugar coating set and gives the surface a glossy color.
Sifted sugar
Sprinkled on top, it caramelizes in the oven to add sweetness and browning.

The step that matters

Pressing the edges together before baking. If the edges are not sealed, the jam can leak out during baking and the sandwich may open up. A firm seal keeps the filling inside while the pastry rises around it.

Swap the apricot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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