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Dessert

Tarts or Tartlets

A puff pastry tart or tartlet filled with raspberry jam, apricot jam, orange marmalade, or stewed apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Tarts or Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick and line tart or tartlet pans.

  3. Trim the edges with a sharp knife.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pans with your choice of raspberry jam, apricot jam, orange marmalade, or stewed apple.

  2. Create fine strips of pastry and arrange them on top in your desired pattern.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven, watching carefully to prevent over-browning.

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. Raspberry + apricottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apricot + orangetop 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. Raspberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together521 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Its layers puff and turn flaky and crisp as the butter in it melts and steams in the oven.
Raspberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruit flavour, and its sugar helps the top brown as it bakes.
Apricot jam
Provides sweetness and fruit flavour, and its sugar helps the top brown as it bakes.
Orange marmalade
Adds sweetness and bitter citrus notes, and its sugar helps the top brown as it bakes.
Stewed apple
Adds moisture and soft sweetness, and it fills the pastry without drying out.

The step that matters

Bake in the preheated oven, watching carefully to prevent over-browning.. Sugar in the jams and pastry browns quickly at high heat, so the tops can scorch before the pastry is fully cooked through. Checking closely lets you pull the tarts once they are golden and crisp.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, apricot, apple):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, apricot, 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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