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Dessert

Apple Tartlets

Apple tartlets filled with buttery, sugared orange or lemon flavored batter topped with apple halves and meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Cover the patty pans with pastry.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then gradually add the sugar and grated rind.

  2. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

  3. Mix in the apricot syrup, flour, and baking powder until combined.

  4. Pour the mixture into the pastry-lined pans and bake for about 20 minutes, until well-rounded and golden.

Top and serve

  1. Place half a canned apple on top of each tartlet, then cover with meringue.

  2. Return to the oven for 10 minutes, until the meringue is cooked and lightly browned.

  3. Serve hot or cold for dessert.

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 + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Orange + apricottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

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

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the filling a light, rich texture and flavor.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Gives the filling body so it holds its shape while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the filling rises and becomes well-rounded.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream to a smooth, airy base.
Meringue
Forms a topping that cooks and browns in the final oven stage.

The step that matters

Beating in the egg yolks one at a time. Adding yolks gradually lets each one emulsify fully into the creamed butter. Adding them all at once can cause the mixture to curdle and trap less air, so the filling may bake up dense.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, syrup, apricot, flour, apple):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, syrup, apricot, flour, apple. 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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