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Dessert

Swiss Tarts

A small pastry tart filled with raspberry jam and a butter‑sugar‑egg batter, finished with water icing and glace cherries.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Swiss Tarts

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. Prepare deep tartlet tins by lining them with short pastry.

  3. Place a little raspberry jam in the bottom of each tartlet tin.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar together.

  4. Stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture along with the milk until just combined.

  5. Half fill the tartlet tins with the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  2. Once cool, cover the tarts with water icing and garnish with glace cherries.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raspberry + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,014 recipes

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

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the tart filling.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the tart filling together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the recipe to help the tarts rise and lighten.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to help the batter rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps create a tender, golden crumb when creamed with butter.

The step that matters

Half fill the tartlet tins. Filling too much makes the batter overflow and bake unevenly, while too little gives thin, dry tarts. Leaving room lets the batter rise and set properly in the oven.

Swap the raspberry

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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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