Skip to main content
Dessert

Plum Custard Tartlets

A tartlet filled with a sweet plum custard topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plum Custard Tartlets

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. Sieve the greengage plums into a bowl.

  2. Whisk together the sieved plums, sugar, and egg yolks until light and foamy.

Assemble and bake

  1. Fill small puff pastry shells with the plum mixture.

  2. Beat the egg whites until stiff.

  3. Fold the powdered sugar into the beaten egg whites.

  4. Spread the meringue over the plum filling.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly browned.

Serve

  1. Allow the tartlets to cool for easy handling.

  2. Serve the tartlets warm.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Plum + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together794 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Greengage plums
Provide the main fruit flavour and a juicy, tart base for the custard filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the plum filling and helps it set smoothly when cooked.
Egg yolks
Thicken the plum mixture and give the filling a rich, creamy structure.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Powdered sugar
Dissolves into the whites to stabilise the meringue and add sweetness.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites need to form a firm foam without being overbeaten, since under-whipped whites will weep or sink and overbeaten whites turn grainy and dry. Grease or yolk residue in the bowl prevents whites from reaching full volume.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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

Mixed Fruit SherbetMixed Fruit Sherbet6 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes