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Dessert

Chocolate Tart

A chocolate tart topped with stewed or canned apples and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,466 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Chocolate Tart

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Line a pie dish with the puff pastry.

Make and bake the tart

  1. Stir the well-beaten eggs into the prepared chocolate.

  2. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pastry and bake until set.

Top and serve

  1. Stew the apples until tender or use tinned apples.

  2. Place the apples on top of the baked chocolate tart.

  3. Cover with cream and serve.

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. Chocolate + creamtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Chocolate + appletop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together289 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  3. Chocolate + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,448 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptenal (green).

  4. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Apple + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,089 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Eggs
Bind the chocolate mixture and help it set firm when baked.
Puff pastry
Forms a crisp, flaky case that holds the chocolate filling.
Cooking apples
Add tart fruitiness and moisture that contrasts with the rich chocolate.
Prepared chocolate
Provides the main flavour and the rich, dense body of the filling.

The step that matters

Bake the chocolate filling until set. Eggs set as they heat, so underbaking leaves the filling runny while overbaking can make it dry and grainy. Check that the centre is just firm before removing it.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, egg, cream. 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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