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Dessert

Orange Tartlets

A baked tartlet with orange filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the shells

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cover inverted patty pans or muffin pans with plain pastry and bake until golden.

  3. Remove from pans and place on a baking sheet.

Make the filling

  1. Prepare the orange filling by mixing sugar, orange juice, flour, lemon juice, grated orange rind, and beaten eggs in the order given.

  2. Cook the mixture in a double boiler for 12 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

Make the meringue and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gradually add sugar while continuing to beat.

  2. Add vanilla to the meringue mixture.

  3. Fill the tartlets with orange filling, cover with meringue, and bake for 10 minutes.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,371 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Thicken the orange filling as they cook and add richness to it.
Flour
Thickens the orange filling so it sets into a sliceable custard.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that forms the light, stable meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white meringue.
Orange juice
Gives the filling its liquid base and bright citrus flavour.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thickened. Stirring constantly keeps the eggs and flour from scorching or lumping, and the mixture must thicken fully so the filling sets and holds under the meringue.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Blueberryfits better
  2. Blackberryfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, lemon, egg, butter, vanilla. 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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