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Dessert

Chocolate Tarts

Chocolate tarts made with a chocolate filling and meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Chocolate Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Put the grated chocolate into the milk and heat to boiling.

  2. Stir in the dissolved cornstarch and cook for 5 minutes until thickened.

  3. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl to cool slightly.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and the whites of 2 eggs with the sugar until light.

  5. Once the chocolate mixture is almost cold, combine it with the egg mixture and stir until light.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill pastry shells with the chocolate mixture and bake.

  2. For the meringue, beat the remaining egg whites with 2 tablespoons sugar and lemon juice until stiff peaks form.

  3. Spread the meringue over the tarts and bake until golden.

  4. Serve cold.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornstarch
Thickens the chocolate mixture as it heats, giving the filling a sliceable body.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and set the filling, while whipped whites give the meringue its structure.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavor and richness of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, dissolving the chocolate into a smooth base.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilize the beaten egg whites in the meringue.

The step that matters

Cooking the cornstarch mixture until thickened. Cornstarch only thickens fully when the mixture reaches a boil and is stirred constantly. Undercooked starch leaves the filling thin and pasty, so it will not set properly once cooled.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Peachfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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