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Dessert

Red Currant and Raspberry Tart

A fruit tart made with red currants, raspberries, sugar, and water, baked in a pie crust and served with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Red Currant and Raspberry Tart

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 fruit

  1. Pick and wash the red currants.

  2. Remove the stalks from the raspberries.

  3. Combine the currants and raspberries with the sugar in a pie dish, mixing well and shaping into a cone.

  4. Add the water to the fruit mixture.

Assemble the tart

  1. Prepare the pie crust as directed, roll it out, and cut a 1-inch wide strip to place around the dish.

  2. Roll out the cover for the tart and place it on top, ornamenting the edges neatly.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C), covering the top with buttered paper if it browns too quickly.

  2. Once cooked, sift a little sugar over the top and serve with cream and additional sifted sugar.

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

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

  2. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

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

  3. Red currant + creamtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together247 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Red currants
Provide the tart, acidic fruit flavour that balances the sugar.
Raspberries
Add aroma and a softer, sweeter fruit flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juices to form the filling.
Pie crust
Forms the structure that encloses the fruit and holds the filling in place.

The step that matters

Covering the top with buttered paper. Sugar and fruit juices brown quickly at high heat, so the top can scorch before the filling and crust are fully cooked. A protective covering slows browning while the heat works through the fruit.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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