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Dessert

Fairy Fancies

A pastry made of short crust dough cut into rings, filled with various preserves.

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

a dozen sheets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the pastry

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

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

  3. Use two round cutters to form rings, one about 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.

Bake and fill

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

  2. 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

What each ingredient does

Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp, sturdy base of each fancy once baked.
Egg white
Glues the rings to the pastry sheets so they stay in place during baking.
Apple jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy, set filling to the sections.
Strawberry jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy, set filling to the sections.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and a glossy, set filling to the sections.
Peach jam
Adds sweetness and a glossy, set filling to the sections.

The step that matters

Bake in a very gentle oven until crisp and pale. Pastry baked too hot browns before it dries through, so a low, gentle oven lets it set crisp without colouring. Pale colour keeps the rings and sections clean-edged against the bright 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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