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Dessert

Fairy Fancies

A short crust pastry with rings filled with various preserves and optional almond paste and icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 342 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fairy Fancies

Oven, in the book's wordsA very gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the short crust pastry thinly and evenly.

  2. Use a large tin cutter to cut out a dozen small sheets.

  3. With two round cutters, cut out rings, one about 1 inch in diameter and the other half that size.

  4. Place the rings on the pastry sheets as shown in the engraving.

  5. Moisten each ring with a brush dipped in egg white before placing it on the pastry.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) until crisp and pale.

  2. Fill each section of the pastry with a different preserve: one with jelly, one with jam, etc.

Finish

  1. Optionally, ice and decorate with almond paste and food coloring before serving.

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 + peachtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

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

  2. Peach + raspberrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together190 recipes

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

  3. Apple + apricottop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  4. Apple + peachtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together303 recipes

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

  5. Apricot + raspberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp, buttery shells that hold the preserves.
Egg white
Acts as a glue so the pastry rings stick to the sheets and seal well.
Apple or strawberry jelly
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor to the filled sections.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor to the filled sections.
Peach or green-gage jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor to the filled sections.
Raspberry jelly
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor to the filled sections.

The step that matters

Bake in a gentle oven until crisp and pale. Pastry baked too hot browns before it dries through, so it can turn dark or stay soft inside. A gentle oven dries and sets the pastry evenly so the shells stay crisp and pale under the preserves.

“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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