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Dessert

A Sweet Pasty

A sweet pastry filled with apples, almonds, citrus, marrow, sugar, cinnamon, and brandy, baked in puff pastry.

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. Combine the minced apples, chopped almonds, citron, orange peel, and marrow in a bowl.

  3. Add the pounded sugar and cinnamon, and mix the mixture well.

  4. Stir in the brandy until fully incorporated.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a baking dish with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry-lined dish with the mixture.

  3. Cover with more puff pastry.

  4. Bake until golden brown.

  5. Serve on a napkin.

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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky top and bottom crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Apples
Provide moisture and tart fruit flavor that becomes soft within the filling.
Sweet almonds
Add richness, body, and nutty flavor to the filling.
Marrow
Adds fat and richness, giving the filling a tender, moist texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown slightly as it bakes.
Brandy
Adds aromatic flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Assembling the pastry. The filling is wet from the apples and brandy, so it can make the bottom crust soggy if it sits long before baking. Assemble just before baking so the pastry stays crisp and the top browns evenly.

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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