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Dessert

A Sweet Pasty

A puff pastry filled with apples, almonds, citron, orange peel, marrow, sugar, cinnamon, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

A Sweet Pasty

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 filling

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced apples, chopped almonds, citron, orange peel, and fresh marrow.

  3. Add the sugar and cinnamon, then mix in the brandy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry, fill it with the mixture, and cover with more puff pastry.

  2. Bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Remove from the oven, turn out onto a napkin, and serve.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide moisture and bulk, softening as they bake into the filling.
Sweet almonds
Add richness and a nutty texture that holds up to the baked filling.
Fresh marrow
Adds fat and richness, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top pastry brown during baking.
Puff paste
Forms the flaky layers that enclose the filling and bake golden.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. The filling is enclosed in pastry, so the cook must judge doneness by the top crust colour. Puff pastry needs enough heat to set its layers and brown, while the apples must soften through without the crust burning.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, orange, sugar, cinnamon, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, orange, sugar, cinnamon, brandy. 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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