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Dessert

Apple Tartlets

Apple tartlets are small pastry cups filled with apple marmalade and topped with pastry, brushed with egg wash, baked, and sprinkled with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple Tartlets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the tart pastry thinly.

  2. Cut out twenty circular pieces with a fluted cutter.

  3. Line the tartlet pans with the pastry pieces.

Fill and assemble

  1. Fill each tartlet with a spoonful of apple marmalade.

  2. Cover with a mosaic of pastry, then brush with beaten egg.

Bake and glaze

  1. Place on a baking sheet and bake until lightly colored.

  2. Sprinkle with fine sugar and use a salamander to glaze.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

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

  3. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Tart pastry
Forms the crisp, buttery case and holds the filling in place.
Apple marmalade
Supplies the filling's moisture, sweetness and apple flavor.
Egg
Gives the pastry an egg wash that promotes even browning and a glossy surface.
Fine sugar
Caramelizes under the salamander to form a sweet, glossy top.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly colored. Color shows the pastry is cooked through. Underbaked pastry stays pale and soft, while overbaking dries it and makes it brittle. Browning comes from Maillard reactions and caramelization of the sugars.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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