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Dessert

D’ Artois of Apricot

A puff pastry filled with apricot jam, baked and finished with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

D’ Artois of Apricot

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 pastry

  1. Prepare 1 pound of puff pastry and fold it seven times.

  2. Take one-third of the pastry, knead it, and roll it out to fit a 14x12 inch baking sheet.

Assemble

  1. Spread a thick layer of apricot jam over the pastry, leaving an inch from the edges.

  2. Roll out the remaining pastry to cover the jam and press the edges to seal.

  3. Mark the pastry into small oblong shapes with a knife and brush with beaten egg.

  4. Score the surface to create a feather pattern.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

  2. Sprinkle with fine sugar and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes to melt the sugar.

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 + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Folded layers of dough that puff into flaky, airy sheets as they bake.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour, and keeps the filling moist under the pastry.
Egg
Beaten egg brushed on top promotes even browning and a glossy finish.
Fine sugar
Sprinkled on top and melted in the oven for a crisp, sweet, glazed surface.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Puff pastry needs a hot oven so the water in its butter layers turns to steam quickly, lifting the dough into flaky layers. Underbaking leaves it pale, soggy and dense.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar. 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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