Why it works: Egg and sugar 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 ↓
Tarts of Preserved Fruit
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Line small plates with rich crust pastry.
Make a rim with puff pastry and bake for 10-15 minutes at 400°F (200°C) until done.
Fill and finish
Fill the baked crusts with preserved fruit.
Brush the tops with egg white and sift a little white sugar over them.
Place them in the oven for about three minutes.
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.
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Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rich crust pastry
- Forms the sturdy base that holds the filling.
- Puff pastry
- Forms a light, flaky rim that rises around the base when baked.
- Preserved fruit
- Supplies the sweet, fruity filling.
- Egg white
- Gives the tops a glossy, lightly browned finish when baked.
- White sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the tops caramelise and brown.
The step that matters
Brush the tops with egg white and sift a little white sugar over them.. Egg white and sugar form a thin glaze that sets and browns quickly in the oven. Too much sugar or a long bake can scorch the tops before the pastry is cooked through.
“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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