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Plum Custard Tartlets

A tartlet filled with plum custard topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Plum Custard Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Sieve the greengage plums into a bowl.

Make the filling

  1. Add the sugar and beaten egg yolks to the plums and whisk until light and foamy.

  2. Fill small puff pastry tart shells with the plum mixture.

Top and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then fold in the powdered sugar.

  2. Spread the meringue over the filled tart shells.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until the meringue is 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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

  3. Plum + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together794 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Greengage plums
Provide the main fruit flavour and moisture for the custard filling.
Egg yolks
Thicken the plum mixture and enrich it into a custard texture.
Egg whites
Whip into a stiff foam that forms the meringue topping.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg whites.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be whipped until they hold firm peaks so the meringue keeps its volume and stays stable during baking. Under-whipped whites will weep or flatten, while overbeaten whites turn dry and grainy.

Swap the plum

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Lemonfits better
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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