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Apricot Tcirtelets

Small pastry shells filled with apricot halves and syrup, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,458 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Apricot Tcirtelets

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.

Prepare the apricots and syrup

  1. Boil apricot halves in sugar for a few minutes, then remove with a fork and place on a plate.

  2. Pass the syrup through a cloth and reduce it until thick.

Assemble the tartlets

  1. Roll out the fine paste very thin and cut into small rounds to line 24 buttered tartelet molds.

  2. Twist strips of paste into a cord shape and place around the edges of the molds.

  3. Brush the edges with egg wash, fill each mold with a little fine sugar and half an apricot, cut side up.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until nicely colored.

  2. Once baked, add half a spoonful of syrup and a kernel to each tartlet.

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 + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Apricot halves
Provide the fruit flavour and juicy centre of each tartlet.
Sugar
Sweetens the apricots and syrup and thickens the syrup as it reduces.
Fine paste (puff pastry)
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the filling.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the tartlet and helps the pastry edges brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Reducing the syrup until thick. Syrup that is too thin will soak into the pastry and make the base soggy. Reducing concentrates the sugar so it stays thick and sweet when spooned on after baking.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter. 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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