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Dessert

Jelly Tarts

A light custard tart made with eggs, sugar, butter, and jelly, baked in custard pans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and butter 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 ↓

Jelly Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Separate the eggs and place the yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add sugar, butter, and jelly to the yolks and beat lightly.

  3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to a stiff froth.

  4. Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into custard pans and bake.

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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Eggs
Whites trap air for lift, and yolks add richness and set the tart's structure.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender crumb and mouthfeel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps keep the texture tender.
Jelly
Adds sweetness, fruity flavor, and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Gently fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture. Whipped egg whites hold air that makes the tarts light. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, so the tarts bake up dense and flat instead of airy.

“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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