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Dessert

Raspberry Tart with Cream

A puff pastry tart filled with raspberries, red currants, and a sweet cream mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Raspberry Tart with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Lay puff pastry in a large pie dish.

  3. Add raspberries and red currants, then sweeten with sugar.

  4. Cover with a thin lid of puff pastry and bake until golden.

Add the cream custard

  1. In a bowl, mix warm cream, beaten egg yolks, and a little sugar.

  2. Cut the tart open, pour the cream mixture inside, and return to the oven for 5-6 minutes.

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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Red currant + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Cream and egg 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

Puff paste
Forms a flaky, crisp pastry case and lid that bake golden.
Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour and juiciness that fills the tart.
Red currants
Add tart acidity that balances the sugar and fruit sweetness.
2 egg yolks
Thicken the warm cream into a set, custard-like filling.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the filling a smooth, soft texture.

The step that matters

Adding the cream mixture back into the oven. The cream must be warm, not hot, when mixed with the yolks so they do not scramble. Returning the tart to the oven then gently sets the yolks into a custard; too long and the filling can overcook and turn grainy.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream, 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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