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Pineapple Tartlets

A pastry tartlet filled with diced pineapple and topped with whipped egg whites, cherries, and pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Pineapple 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 cases

  1. Roll out the pastry thinly and line deep tartlet tins.

  2. Place a round of greased paper in each tin and fill with uncooked peas or rice.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) and let the cases cool.

Fill and top

  1. Cut the pineapple into small dice and fill the cases with it, using a little of the syrup.

  2. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then add the sugar.

  3. Pass the mixture through a rose forcing pipe onto the tartlets.

  4. Garnish with cherries and chopped pistachio nuts, then set in a moderate oven to dry.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

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

  2. Pistachio + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together75 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  3. Nuts + pineappletop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  4. Sugar + pineappletop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,841 recipes

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

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 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, sturdy case that holds the filling.
Egg whites
Whisked until stiff, they create a light, airy meringue topping.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the meringue and helps it hold its stiff structure.
Pineapple chunks
Provide the fruit filling and its sweet, acidic flavour.

The step that matters

Whisk the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten to stiff peaks before the sugar is added, since under-whipped whites will not hold their shape or give a light topping when piped and dried in the oven.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

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