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Dessert

Tartlets, Such As Are Made At the Pastry Cooks

A small pastry tartlet filled with jam and topped with a cross pattern of puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Tartlets, Such As Are Made At the Pastry Cooks

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out Puff Paste to ¼ inch thick and cut into pieces about the size of a coin.

  2. Use a knife to trim the edges into a round shape.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a small amount of your chosen jam in the center of each round.

  2. Take additional Puff Paste and cut into strips to create a cross pattern over the jam.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 6 to 10 minutes until lightly browned.

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. Apricot + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Apricot + raspberrytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

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

  3. Raspberry + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together282 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Raspberry + strawberry jamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Apricot + strawberry jamtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff paste
Flaky, layered pastry that puffs and browns to form the tartlet base.
Apricot jam
Provides sweetness and a fruity filling that softens and sets in the oven.
Damson jam
Provides sweetness and a tart fruit flavour once heated in the pastry.
Raspberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruity aroma that concentrates as it heats.
Strawberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruity flavour that becomes glossy and spreadable when warm.
Apple jam
Provides sweetness and body, thickening the filling slightly as it heats.

The step that matters

Baking until lightly browned. Puff pastry relies on layers of fat creating steam to rise; too little heat leaves it dense, while over-baking dries the pastry and can scorch the sugary jam, so watch closely within the short window.

Swap the strawberry jam

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apricot, raspberry, apple):

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apricot, raspberry, apple. 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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