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Dessert

Nut Tartlets

Nut Tartlets are small baked cakes topped with nuts and coated in a sugar syrup fondant.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Nut Tartlets

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until smooth.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks gradually, then add salt.

  3. Alternate adding the milk and flour, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the stiffly whipped egg whites, vanilla, and baking powder.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased shallow pan, about 1 inch deep.

Bake and cut

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

  2. Cool on a wire rack, then cut into small circles.

Make the fondant and coat

  1. In a saucepan, melt the granulated sugar in boiling water.

  2. Boil slowly without stirring until the syrup forms a soft ball in cold water.

  3. Let the syrup cool until lukewarm.

  4. Stir the syrup until it thickens and clouds.

  5. Knead the syrup until soft and pliable.

  6. Melt a portion of the fondant over hot water.

  7. Add color and flavor to the fondant as desired.

  8. Dip each cake in the fondant for a thin coating.

  9. Sprinkle finely chopped nuts on top.

  10. Press a whole nut in the center.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to build a tender, smooth base for the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cakes rise and stay light.
Granulated sugar
Cooked into syrup that becomes the soft, glossy fondant coating.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the baked cake together.

The step that matters

Boil the syrup slowly without stirring until it forms a soft ball. Stirring while sugar syrup boils can trigger crystallization, leaving a grainy fondant. Cooking to the soft-ball stage sets the sugar concentration so the coating stays soft and pliable once cooled and kneaded.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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