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Pineapple Tartlets

A pastry tartlet filled with pineapple and topped with meringue, garnished with cherries and pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pineapple 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. Roll out the pastry thinly and line deep tartlet tins.

  2. Place a round of greased paper in each tin.

  3. Fill the tins with uncooked peas or rice.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven until golden.

  5. Let the cases cool.

Fill and top

  1. Cut the pineapple into small dice.

  2. Fill the cases with pineapple, using a little of the syrup.

  3. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  4. Add the sugar and mix well.

  5. Pipe the meringue onto the tartlets using a piping bag.

  6. Garnish with cherries and chopped pistachio nuts.

  7. Place the tartlets in a moderate oven to dry.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

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

  2. Pistachio + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Nuts + pineappletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Short pastry
Forms the crisp, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks to form the meringue topping that sets and dries.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Pineapple chunks
Provide sweet, juicy fruit filling, with syrup adding moisture.

The step that matters

Whisking the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold stiff peaks, since air trapped in the foam gives the meringue its volume. Under-whipped whites will slump, and over-whipped whites turn grainy and dry.

Swap the pineapple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Pineapplethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pistachio, nuts, sugar. 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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