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Dessert

Orange Tartlets Are Tempting

A tartlet filled with a citrusy orange mixture baked until golden.

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 Are Tempting

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.

Prepare the filling

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

  2. In a bowl, combine the juice of the oranges, grated peel, sugar, butter, lemon juice, and corn starch. Beat the mixture well until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the filling into tartlet shells.

  2. Bake without a cover until set and lightly golden.

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. Orange + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together586 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  4. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oranges
Provide the main juice and peel flavour and liquid for the filling.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the citrus acidity.
Corn starch
Thickens the juice so the filling sets firm when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender texture to the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that sharpens the orange flavour.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Corn starch thickens as it heats, but the filling needs enough time in the oven to set. Pulling the tartlets early leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the filling dry or cause it to weep.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Limefits about as well
  4. Coconutfits about as well

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