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Dessert

Fruit Tartlets

A pastry shell filled with stewed fruit and glazed with a sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Fruit Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the cases

  1. Make ½ lb of short paste as described on page 678.

  2. Butter small tartlet tins.

  3. Line the tins with the paste, ¼ inch thick.

  4. Cover the paste with buttered paper.

  5. Fill the tins with raw rice.

  6. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 15 minutes.

  7. Remove the rice and paper from the tins.

  8. Return the tins to the oven to dry the centers.

  9. Turn the tartlets out of the tins.

  10. Let the tartlets cool.

Make the syrup and fruit

  1. Make a syrup with ⅓ cup castor sugar and ⅓ cup water.

  2. Stew suitable fruit in the syrup until cooked.

  3. Reduce the syrup by rapid boiling.

Fill and glaze

  1. Fill the tartlets with the stewed fruit.

  2. Pour a little over the fruit to glaze.

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. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,116 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Short paste
Forms the crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the stewed fruit and, when reduced, the glaze.
Fruit
Provides the main flavor and moisture of the filling.
Whipped cream
Adds richness and a light, soft texture.

The step that matters

Drying the tartlet centers. Returning the unfilled cases to the oven dries the base so it stays crisp under the moist stewed fruit instead of turning soggy.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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