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Dessert

Fear Tartlets

A tartlet filled with apple marmalade and pear, topped with caster sugar and served with apple jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and pear match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 649 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, fruity. The science ↓

Fear Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry to 12 inches long by 8 inches wide.

  2. Cut the pastry into six pieces and arrange them in six scalloped tart pans (3 inches wide).

  3. Press the pastry down at the bottom and sides, leaving the rim untouched.

Fill and bake

  1. Mould each tart with 3 oz of apple marmalade.

  2. Place half a large pear on top of the marmalade and dust with caster sugar.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 20 minutes.

  4. Dust the edges lightly with more powdered sugar and melt it in the oven for 2 minutes.

  5. Remove from the oven and let cool for 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Spread a little apple jelly over each tart, turn them out carefully onto a napkin on a dish, 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. Apple + peartop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together649 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  2. Pear + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,079 recipes

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

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

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

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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp case that holds the filling.
Apple marmalade
Adds sweetness and a moist, fruity layer under the pear.
Pear
Provides fresh fruit flavour and a soft, tender texture when baked.

The step that matters

Dust the edges and melt the sugar in the oven. Sugar on the exposed pastry edges can burn quickly in a hot oven. A short, watched melt gives a glossy finish, while longer exposure risks darkening or scorching the rim.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Applethe original
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pear, 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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