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Dessert

cALMOND Tartlets

Small almond pastry tartlets filled with apricot or jam and a sweet almond mixture, finished with almond icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and pistachio match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 693 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

cALMOND 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 the tins

  1. Roll out the pastry thinly and line patty tins with it.

  2. Place half an apricot or a little jam at the bottom of each tin.

Make and bake the filling

  1. Mix the almonds and sugar with the beaten half white of egg and add the almond essence.

  2. Cover the jam in the patty tins with the almond mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. When cold, dip the tartlets in the almond icing and decorate with candied cherries or pistachios.

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. Almond + pistachiotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together693 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apricot + pistachiotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Short pastry
Forms the crisp case that holds the filling while it bakes.
Crushed sweet almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavour of the almond filling.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it bake to a golden colour.
White of egg
Binds the crushed almonds and sugar into a filling that holds together.
Apricots or jam
Add fruit sweetness and moisture beneath the almond filling.

The step that matters

Covering the jam with the almond mixture. If the filling is spread too thickly or the jam is left uncovered, the filling may bake unevenly and the fruit may burn or leak. Spreading it evenly over the fruit gives a uniform, well-set layer.

Swap the apricot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, egg, pistachio):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, egg, pistachio. 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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