Skip to main content
Dessert

French Cherry Tarts

A pastry tart filled with cherries, dusted with sugar and cinnamon, baked and served with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

French Cherry Tarts

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

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and line a large pastry hoop or flat cake tin.

  2. Fill the lined tin with pitted cherries.

  3. Sprinkle the cherries with caster sugar mixed with ground cinnamon.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the filled tin into a paper bag, fold the ends, and secure with clips.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Once baked, remove from the bag, pour over well‑reduced syrup, and serve.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + syruptop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together990 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp base that holds the cherries while it bakes.
Stoned cherries
Provide the fruit filling, releasing juices that moisten the tart as it bakes.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the cherries and helps draw out their juices for a syrupy filling.
Syrup
Adds extra sweetness and gloss to the finished tart.

The step that matters

Reducing the syrup well. Syrup poured on the tart must be thick, since thin liquid soaks into the pastry and makes it soggy. Reducing concentrates the sugars so the syrup clings and sets glossy.

“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.

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesOranges in SyrupOranges in Syrup9 recipesSyrup SauceSyrup Sauce6 recipes