Skip to main content
Dessert

Strawberry and Cream Tar

A puff pastry tart topped with sliced strawberries, caster sugar, vanilla essence, and whipped egg yolk cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Strawberry and Cream Tar

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the tart

  1. Line a flat tart dish with puff pastry.

  2. Layer ripe strawberries on the pastry.

  3. Sprinkle with caster sugar and vanilla essence.

Make the cream topping

  1. While baking, whip egg yolks into cream.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until done.

  2. A quarter hour before removing, pour egg foam over the tart.

  3. Serve immediately after taking it out of the oven.

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 + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

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

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

  5. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 the crisp, flaky base that holds the fruit and topping.
Egg yolks
Whipped into the cream to form a set, custard-like topping that enriches the tart.
Cream
Whipped with the yolks to add richness and a soft, moist texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the strawberries and helps draw out their juice as they bake.
Strawberries
Provide the fresh fruit flavour and juiciness that defines the tart.

The step that matters

Pouring the egg foam on time. Adding the yolk and cream foam too early lets it cook through and lose its airy lightness, while adding it too late leaves the topping underset. Timing it near the end of baking keeps it tender and just set.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes