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Dessert

Orange Tartlets

A tartlet filled with a citrusy batter of orange zest, juice, butter, sugar, cake crumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Orange Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in each egg yolk one at a time.

  3. Mix the grated orange peel, cornflour, and orange juice together, then add to the mixture.

  4. Fold in the cake crumbs and the stiffly whipped egg whites.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into 10 to 12 tartlet tins lined with short pastry.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 20 minutes.

  3. Allow to cool before icing.

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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the tartlets a rich, tender body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
Cake crumbs
Add body and softness to the filling as they absorb moisture from the batter.
Cornflour
Thickens the orange juice and rind mixture so the filling sets smoothly when baked.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a light, aerated creamed base.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when whipped stiff and gently folded in; overmixing or deflating them makes the tartlets dense instead of light.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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