Skip to main content
Dessert

Flan of Peaches

A baked pastry case filled with peaches simmered in syrup and topped with jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Peach and red currant work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Flan of Peaches

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 case

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Grease a fluted circular or oval mold, about 2 inches high and 8 inches in diameter, with butter.

  3. Line the mold with short pastry, cut the edges level, and pinch the top edges with pastry pincers.

  4. Fill the case with flour mixed with chopped suet and bake until three-quarters done.

  5. Remove the flour and clean the case with a paste brush.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the case with halved peaches that have been simmered in thin syrup for 5 minutes.

  2. Return the flan to the oven for about 15 minutes.

  3. Arrange a close row of peach halves on top.

  4. Pour over the jelly made from the syrup and red currant juice.

  5. Garnish with a peach kernel on each piece.

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. Peach + red curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Short paste
Forms the crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Chopped suet
Mixed with flour to fill the case, adding richness and fat to the base.
Peaches
Provide the fruit flavour and soft, juicy body of the flan.
Red currant juice
Makes the tart jelly that sets over the peaches, adding acidity and gloss.

The step that matters

Clean the case before filling. Brushing out the loose flour after partial baking leaves a dry, clean pastry surface. Any leftover crumbs or flour can burn or make the base soggy once the fruit and jelly go in.

Swap the red currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, peach, syrup):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, peach, syrup. 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

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesPeach Ice CreamPeach Ice Cream64 recipesPeach FrittersPeach Fritters55 recipesPeach MeringuePeach Meringue40 recipes