Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Tarts

A chocolate tart made with grated chocolate, cinnamon, lemon rind, sugar, ground rice, cream, and eggs baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,137 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Mix the grated chocolate with cinnamon, salt, lemon rind, sugar, and ground rice.

  2. In a separate bowl, whisk the cream or milk with the eggs until well combined.

  3. Gradually add the egg mixture to the chocolate mixture, stirring smoothly.

  4. Heat the mixture over low heat for a few minutes, being careful not to curdle the cream.

Bake the tarts

  1. Line a tart dish with puff pastry.

  2. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the pastry.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Set the custard and add richness and structure to the filling.
Cream or new milk
Provides moisture and a smooth, rich body to the filling.
French chocolate
Gives the filling its main flavour and deep colour.
Ground rice
Thickens the filling and helps give it body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture gently. Egg proteins set at moderate temperatures and can scramble or curdle if the mixture gets too hot, so low heat and constant stirring keep the filling smooth.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, cinnamon, sugar, rice, cream, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, cinnamon, sugar, rice, cream, egg. 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.

You might also like

Lemon Rice PuddingLemon Rice Pudding19 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesChocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipes