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Dessert

Timbale of Fruits

A baked pastry shell filled with orange ice and preserved fruits, topped with orange icing and preserved greengages.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Timbale of Fruits

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Rub the softened butter into the flour.

  2. Mix in the milk and salt, then stir over medium heat for 15 minutes.

  3. Turn the mixture out and let it cool.

Bake the timbale

  1. Butter a timbale mold and pour in the batter.

  2. Bake until done.

  3. Cut flat on top and hollow the inside.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill the hollow with orange ice mixed with preserved fruits.

  2. Turn it out onto a round dish.

  3. Mask the outside with orange icing.

  4. Garnish the top with preserved greengages.

  5. Arrange strawberry jam tartlets around the base.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  5. Milk + strawberry jamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together144 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the starchy structure that holds the set batter together.
Milk
Provides liquid and milk proteins that thicken and set the batter with heat.
Softened butter
Adds fat that tenderises the mixture and carries flavour.

The step that matters

Stir over medium heat for 15 minutes. Flour starch must be cooked with the milk while stirring, or it can stay pasty and lumpy. Constant stirring keeps the mixture smooth and gelatinises the starch so the batter thickens evenly before baking.

Swap the strawberry jam

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, milk, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Strawberry jamthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, milk, orange. 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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