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Dessert

Orange Tartlets

Orange Tartlets are small pastries filled with a citrusy batter of orange juice, peel, sugar, butter, cornstarch, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Orange Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the orange juice, grated orange peel, sugar, and butter.

  2. Dissolve the cornstarch in the lemon juice and stir into the mixture.

  3. Beat all ingredients well together.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into tart shells and bake until set, about 20-25 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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

  2. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Orange juice
Provides the main citrus flavor and liquid that forms the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the citrus.
Cornstarch
Thickens the citrus liquid so the filling sets when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the flavor and helps the filling set.

The step that matters

Dissolve the cornstarch in the lemon juice. Cornstarch must be fully dissolved before it goes into the warm mixture; otherwise it clumps and the filling sets unevenly rather than smoothly.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Raspberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, lemon. 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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