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Fairy Fancies

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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.

  1. Prepare short crust pastry and roll it thin and even.

  2. Cut out a dozen small sheets using a large tin cutter.

  3. Use two round cutters to form rings, one 1 inch in diameter and the other half that size.

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

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

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

  7. Fill each section of the pastry with a different preserve 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. Strawberry + raspberrytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together815 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, sweet).

  5. Strawberry + peachtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together228 recipes

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

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

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