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Dessert

Cheese Tartlets

Cheese tartlets are small pastry cups filled with a mixture of white sauce, cheese, and egg, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,861 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line about ten small patty pans with thin pastry and prick the bottoms to prevent rising.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the white sauce, egg yolk, salt, cayenne, and grated cheese.

  2. Whip the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold it into the mixture.

  3. Fill each patty pan about three-quarters full with the mixture.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about twenty minutes until done.

  2. Serve immediately on lace paper, with a little grated cheese sprinkled on top.

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. Pepper + cheesetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,861 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sauce + cheesetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,987 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sauce + peppertop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,303 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + eggtop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together50,580 recipes

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

Sauce and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,303 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

Thick white sauce
Forms the creamy base that the cheese and egg are mixed into.
Grated cheese
Adds rich flavour and fat, and melts to give the filling its savoury body.
Egg
The whipped white lightens the filling and the yolk helps it set when baked.
Pastry
Forms the crisp shell that holds the filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. Whites must be whipped until stiff and folded in gently. Stirring hard knocks out the air trapped in the foam, so the tartlets bake flatter and denser instead of light and puffed.

“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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