Why it works: Currant and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,734 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓
Currant-jelly Tartlets, or Custards
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.
Make the custard
In a bowl, stir 4 tablespoons of currant jelly into 12 beaten eggs gradually.
If the jelly is rich and sweet, no additional sugar is needed.
Line and fill
Line tartlet pans with thinly rolled pastry.
Fill the pans with the custard mixture.
Bake
Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 10 minutes.
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.
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Currant + eggtop 26% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,734 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Set the custard by coagulating as they heat, giving the filling its structure.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and tart fruit flavor to the custard.
- Pastry
- Forms the crisp shell that holds the liquid custard in each tartlet.
The step that matters
Bake until just set. Egg proteins set as they heat, so the custard firms up. Overbaking pushes them too far, causing the filling to turn rubbery, weep, or curdle.
“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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