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Dessert

Tabtlets of Almond Pasts

Tartlets made from almond paste, baked until crisp and filled with whipped cream or jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tabtlets of Almond Pasts

Oven, in the book's wordsA very cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the shells

  1. Butter the smallest-sized patty pans.

  2. Line the pans with almond paste rolled as thin as possible.

  3. Cut the paste with a sharp knife close to the edges of the pans.

Bake and dry

  1. Bake or dry the tartlets slowly in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until they are crisp.

  2. Remove them from the pans when two-thirds done and place them upside down on a sheet of paper.

  3. Return them to the oven until fully dried and crisp.

Fill and serve

  1. At serving time, fill the tartlets with whipped cream or jam.

  2. If using jam, decorate with a small star or ornament cut from the same paste.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Almond paste
Forms the thin crisp shell and supplies the sweet, nutty almond flavour.
Butter
Greases the pans so the delicate paste releases cleanly.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness to the crisp shell at serving time.
Peach or apricot jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Drying the shells slowly in a cool oven. Thin almond paste dries and crisps through slow, low heat. Hot heat can brown or toughen it before it is dry inside. Removing the shells at two-thirds done and turning them upside down lets the base dry evenly.

“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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