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Dessert

Black Currant Tartlets

A tartlet filled with black currants and sweetened cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Black Currant Tartlets

makes 12 tartlets
Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Cook the black currants with the sugar and 2 tablespoons of water in a jar on the stove or in a slow oven until soft.

  2. Line 12 patty pans with the short crust paste.

  3. Fill the lined pans with rice placed in buttered papers and bake in a hot oven until crisp.

Assemble and serve

  1. Once cooled, fill the tartlets with the prepared black currants and syrup.

  2. Top with stiffly whipped sweetened cream and serve cold.

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. Black currant + ricetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together24 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Black currant + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together67 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Black currant + sugartop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Cream + ricetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Black currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and the soft, juicy filling.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the currants and helps draw out a syrup as they cook.
Cream
Adds richness and a light, airy texture when whipped for the topping.
Short crust paste
Forms the crisp, buttery case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Baking the blind tartlet cases. Rice weights the pastry so it keeps its shape while it sets, and the pastry must bake until crisp before filling. Under-baked pastry stays soft and can turn soggy once the moist currant filling is added.

Swap the black currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Black currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, rice. 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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