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Dessert

Flan of Peaches

A peach flan made with short paste, suet, flour, peaches, syrup, and currant juice jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and red currant work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 33 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Flan of Peaches

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the case

  1. Prepare a fluted circular or oval mold by greasing it with butter.

  2. Line the mold with short paste.

  3. Cut the edges level.

  4. Pinch the top edges with pastry pincers.

  5. Fill the case with flour mixed with chopped suet.

  6. Bake until three-quarters done.

  7. Remove the flour.

  8. Clean the case with a paste brush.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the case with halves of peaches that have been skinned.

  2. Simmer the peaches in thin syrup for about 5 minutes.

  3. Bake again for about 15 minutes.

  4. Arrange a close row of peach halves, each topped with a peach kernel.

Finish and serve

  1. Pour jelly made from the currant juice over the top 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. Peach + red curranttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together33 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  4. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Short paste
Forms the crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Chopped suet
Mixed with flour to fill the case, it supports the shape while the base bakes.
Halves of peaches
Provide the soft, sweet fruit that forms the body of the flan.
Red currant juice
Made into a jelly that sets over the top, adding tartness and gloss.

The step that matters

Baking the case until three-quarters done. Par-baking lets the pastry set and firm before the fruit goes in. Underbaked pastry stays soft and can turn soggy under the juicy peaches.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, peach, syrup. 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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