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Dessert

D' Artois of Apricot

A puff pastry tart filled with apricot jam and topped with sugar.

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 ↓

D' Artois of Apricot

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Prepare the puff pastry and give it seven folds.

  2. Take one-third of the pastry, knead it, and roll it out to fit a baking sheet (14 inches by 12 inches).

Assemble the tart

  1. Spread a thick layer of apricot jam over the pastry, leaving an inch from the edges.

  2. Roll out the remaining pastry to cover the jam and place it on top.

  3. Press the edges with your thumb and trim any excess pastry.

  4. Mark the top with small oblong shapes using the back of a knife.

  5. Brush the surface with beaten egg and score a feather pattern.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown.

  2. Sprinkle finely sifted sugar over the pastries and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes to melt the sugar.

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
Its many layers of fat and dough puff apart in the oven, giving a flaky structure.
Apricot jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture that softens the pastry layer beneath it.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on top promotes browning and a glossy golden finish.
Sugar
Sprinkled on at the end, it melts into a sweet, lightly caramelised topping.

The step that matters

Brushing with egg and scoring the feather pattern. Egg glazes the surface so it browns evenly, while cuts made before baking let the layers rise cleanly rather than puffing unevenly.

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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