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Dessert

Chantilly Tartlets

A tartlet with chocolate filling and whipped egg white topping, finished with a glacé cherry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 890 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chantilly Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. Dissolve the chocolate in ¼ cup of milk.

  2. Mix ½ teaspoon cornflour with the same amount of milk and add to the chocolate; boil until thick.

  3. Let it cool, then stir in ½ teaspoon butter, 1 teaspoon sugar, the egg yolk, a pinch of cinnamon, and vanilla.

Bake and top

  1. Half fill each tartlet with this mixture and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  2. Roll out smaller rounds of pastry to the thickness of a thin biscuit and bake alongside the tartlets.

  3. Once the tartlets are firm, whip the egg white with 2 ounces of sugar and pipe it on top.

  4. Add the pastry cover and a glacé cherry, then place in a cool oven until crisp but not brown.

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. Vanilla + cherrytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together890 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  4. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  5. Cinnamon + cherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together551 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Chocolate
Melts into the milk to give the filling its flavour and rich body.
Cornflour
Thickens the chocolate mixture as it boils, giving the filling a set structure.
Egg yolk
Enriches the filling and helps it set firm when baked.
Egg white
Whipped with sugar to form a light meringue topping that browns and crisps.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother, richer texture in the filling.

The step that matters

Whipping and piping the egg white topping. Egg white must be whipped with sugar to stiff peaks and piped onto tartlets that are already firm; otherwise the meringue can weep, spread, or sink into the filling.

Swap the cherry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, milk, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, vanilla):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Cherrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, milk, butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, 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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