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Plum Custard Tartlets

A small pastry shell filled with a plum custard and topped with a sweetened egg white.

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

Plum Custard Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the filling

  1. Whisk the sieved plums, sugar, and egg yolks together until light and foamy.

  2. Fill small puff pastry shells with the plum mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then add powdered sugar and spread over the plum filling.

  2. Bake the tartlets in the oven for a few moments until lightly browned.

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 + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Plum + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together794 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Greengage plums
Provide the fruit flavor and the tart, juicy filling base.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the plums.
Egg yolks
Thicken the plum mixture into a custard-like filling as it sets.
Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff meringue that browns on top of the filling.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the meringue topping and helps it brown lightly.

The step that matters

Bake the tartlets until lightly browned. Baking only briefly is needed to set the meringue and brown it; overbaking can dry the topping and overcook the yolk-based filling, making it grainy or rubbery.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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