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Dessert

Raspberry Tartlets

A pastry filled with raspberry and syrup, topped with coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,939 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Raspberry Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the sugar and water together until reduced to a syrup.

  2. Add the raspberries and cook gently for a few minutes.

  3. Drain the raspberries, then return the syrup to the pot and boil rapidly until considerably reduced.

  4. Let the syrup cool, then add the brandy.

Bake the tartlet shells

  1. Line 10 to 12 tartlet pans with short pastry and fill them with rice placed in buttered paper.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until crisp.

Fill and serve

  1. When cool, fill the tartlets with the prepared raspberries, add an equal portion of syrup to each tartlet, and top with coconut.

  2. Serve cold.

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 + brandytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,939 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + coconuttop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,742 recipes

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

  3. Brandy + coconuttop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

Sugar and brandy barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 11,939 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

Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and bulk of the filling.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the dish and, boiled down, thickens the syrup through reduction.
Short paste
Forms a crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Brandy
Adds aroma and warmth to the syrup.

The step that matters

Reducing the syrup. Boiling the syrup rapidly until considerably reduced concentrates its sugar, so it becomes thick and flavourful rather than watery and likely to soak the crisp tartlet cases.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Apricotfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy. 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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