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Dessert

101 Frozen Cheese Tarts

A frozen cheese tart with fruit filling made from butter, salt, flour, cottage cheese, peaches, figs, or jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Peach and fig share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

101 Frozen Cheese Tarts

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 dough

  1. Mix the butter, salt, flour, and cottage cheese until well combined.

  2. Refrigerate the mixture overnight.

  3. Roll out the dough on a floured surface to a thin layer.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut the dough into two-inch squares.

  2. Place a slice of peach, a piece of fig, or a spoonful of jam in the center of each square.

  3. Pinch the corners of the squares together to seal.

  4. Place the tarts on a buttered baking sheet.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light 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. Peach + figtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

  2. Butter + cottage cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + peachtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together860 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Flour + figtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,192 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sweet butter
Provides fat that keeps the dough tender and flaky as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough that holds the filled tarts together.
Cottage cheese
Adds moisture and tang to the dough, making it rich and soft.
Sliced peaches
Supply fruit sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Preserved figs
Add concentrated sweetness and chewy texture to the filling.
Jam
Adds sweetness and fruit flavor to the filling.

The step that matters

Refrigerate the dough overnight. Chilling firms the butter so it stays in pieces; when it melts in the oven it creates flaky layers. Warm dough becomes greasy and hard to roll and seal.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, cottage cheese, peach):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Figthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cottage cheese, peach. 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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