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Dessert

Strawberry Cream Tarts

A tart filled with stewed strawberries and a creamy mixture of milk, corn starch, egg whites, sugar, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Strawberry Cream Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the shells

  1. Line tart pans with pastry and bake until golden.

  2. Fill the baked shells with stewed strawberries.

Make the cream

  1. In a saucepan, stir corn starch into milk with beaten egg whites and sugar.

  2. Cook over low heat, stirring until thick and smooth.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then fold in whipped cream.

  4. Pour the cream mixture over the tarts.

Note

  1. You can substitute raspberries or other small fruits for strawberries.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Egg whites
Provide structure and help thicken the custard as they set with heat.
Corn starch
Thickens the milk mixture into a smooth, sliceable cream when heated.
Whipped cream
Adds lightness and a soft, airy texture to the cooled filling.
Stewed strawberries
Supply the main fruit flavour and moisture for the tart filling.

The step that matters

Cook over low heat, stirring until thick and smooth. Egg whites and starch can scramble or lump if heated too fast. Gentle heat with constant stirring lets the starch swell evenly and the egg proteins set into a smooth custard.

“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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