Skip to main content
Dessert

Chocolate Tarts

Chocolate tarts made with melted chocolate, cornflour, eggs, milk, sugar, almonds, and butter, baked in a pastry shell.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Almond and walnut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 993 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Chocolate Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

  1. Melt the chocolate and mix it with the cornflour.

  2. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add the melted chocolate mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk and sugar until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the prepared pastry shell.

  2. Top with blanched almonds.

  3. Dot with butter and bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Almond + walnuttop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together993 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Chocolate + almondtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

  4. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the filling and help it set into a firm custard when baked.
Cornflour
Thickens the chocolate mixture so it holds its shape when baked.
Chocolate
Provides the main flavour and richness of the filling.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the custard filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the bitterness of the chocolate.

The step that matters

Bake until just set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking makes it grainy, weepy and cracked. Pulling the tarts once the centre barely wobbles lets residual heat finish the set.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Hazelnutfits about as well
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, egg, almond, milk, sugar, butter. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesChocolate FudgeChocolate Fudge55 recipesChocolate Drop CookiesChocolate Drop Cookies50 recipes