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Orange Honey Tartlets

A sweet tartlet filling made with sugar, butter, orange zest, orange and lemon juice, eggs, and optional rose water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Honey Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine sugar and butter.

  2. Grate the yellow rinds of the oranges and add to the mixture.

  3. Squeeze in the juice of the oranges and lemons.

  4. Stir and boil, then add the eggs.

  5. Cook on low heat until the mixture thickens like melted cheese.

Fill and serve

  1. Use the cooled mixture to fill tartlet shells or spread between cakes.

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 + rosetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together876 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Thicken the mixture as they cook and set it into a smooth, spreadable filling.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the sharp citrus flavour.
Oranges
Provide the main fruit flavour and juice, with zest adding aroma.
Lemons
Add acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the filling.

The step that matters

Cook on low heat until the mixture thickens. Egg yolks and whole eggs set as they heat, but high heat can curdle them into grainy lumps. Gentle heat and steady stirring give a smooth, thick custard-like filling.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Raspberryfits about as well
  4. Figfits less well

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