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Dessert

Apricot Tartlets

A baked pastry shell filled with stewed apricots, served with optional whipped cream or egg white.

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 ↓

Apricot Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

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

  2. Rub the butter into the flour, then add the baking powder and sugar to form a firm paste.

  3. Roll out the paste and line about 20 to 24 patty pans.

  4. Place a crust of bread covered with white paper in the center of each pan.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake in the preheated oven.

  2. Drain the fruit from the tin and stew it with a little sugar.

  3. Place one apricot in the center of each tartlet, add a little syrup, and serve.

  4. Top with whipped cream or egg white if desired.

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. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

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

Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, short texture to the pastry.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry paste that holds the tartlet shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the paste so the pastry rises slightly and turns light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the pastry and helps the stewed fruit taste balanced.
Apricots or peaches
Provide the fruit flavor and soft, juicy filling for each tartlet.

The step that matters

Blind-baking with the bread crust and paper. The bread and paper weight the pastry so it keeps its shape and does not puff or slump as it bakes. Setting the crust before filling keeps the fruit from making it soggy.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, 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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