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Dessert

Lemon Tarts, or Fanchonettes

A lemon tart made with sugar, boiling water, egg yolks, butter, lemon juice and rind, thickened with corn starch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,927 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Tarts, or Fanchonettes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil.

  2. Dissolve the corn-starch in a little cold water and pour it into the boiling water.

  3. Stir until smooth and thick.

  4. Add the sugar, butter, and lemon juice and rind.

  5. Boil for 1 minute.

  6. Stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  7. Set aside to cool.

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. Lemon + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

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

  2. Butter + corntop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

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

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken and enrich the filling, adding richness and a silky texture as they set.
Corn-starch
Thickens the boiling water into a smooth, glossy base for the filling.
Butter
Adds fat for a smooth, rich mouthfeel in the finished filling.
Lemon
Supplies the acidity and aroma that give the filling its tart flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the lemon.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks. Egg yolks can scramble if they meet very hot liquid too quickly. Once the starch-thickened mixture has cooled slightly, the yolks are stirred in gently so they thicken smoothly rather than curdling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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