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Dessert

Mirlitons

Mirlitons are small puff pastry tartlets filled with a sweet egg and sugar batter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Mirlitons

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. Melt the butter and bruise the ratafias and orange flowers.

Make the filling

  1. In a basin, combine the eggs, sugar, melted butter, ratafias, orange flowers, and salt.

  2. Mix well with a wooden spoon until creamy.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into small deep tartlets lined with puff-paste trimmings.

  2. Sprinkle a thick layer of sifted sugar on top.

  3. Bake in the oven until light fawn color and the center rises about half an inch.

  4. Serve hot.

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. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Eggs
Provide structure and body, setting the batter as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the top brown to a light fawn color.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a tender texture.
Ratafias
Contribute almond-like aroma and flavor to the batter.
Candied orange flowers
Add floral citrus aroma and flavor throughout the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until light fawn and the center rises. The batter sets as the eggs cook, so the tartlets should be pulled when the top is light fawn and the center has risen about half an inch. Baking too long dries the filling and darkens the sugar top.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter. 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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