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Transparent Crust for Tarts

A thin, transparent crust for tarts made from butter, flour, and egg, brushed with water and sprinkled with sugar before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Transparent Crust for Tarts

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.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg until thin.

  2. Melt the butter and let it cool.

  3. Mix the cooled butter with the egg.

  4. Stir the mixture into the flour until well combined.

  5. Roll out the dough very thin.

Shape and bake

  1. Line the tart pans quickly.

  2. Brush the tarts with water.

  3. Sprinkle sugar on top.

  4. Bake in a lightly heated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Unsalted butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and its fat helps the crust turn crisp and flaky.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the crust together once it is rolled and baked.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the crust.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through and turns crisp and golden before it can become tough. Thick dough stays pale and dense, and it can underbake in the centre.

“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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