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Dessert

Banana Tarts, Meringued

Banana tarts made with a pastry crust, banana filling, and a meringue topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and apricot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124 recipes. Both carry 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Banana Tarts, Meringued

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Peel the bananas.

  2. Pound the bananas with lemon juice and rose water.

  3. Mix in half the sugar.

  4. Add the apricot jam and mix well.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line patty pans with the pastry and fill with the banana mixture.

  2. Lay strips of pastry over the top to form a lattice.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Top and brown

  1. Whip the egg whites with the remaining sugar to make a meringue.

  2. Spread the meringue over the tarts and return to the oven to brown.

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. Banana + apricottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methyl-1-butanol acetate (fruity).

  2. Lemon + apricottop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + rosetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,174 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  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

Ripe bananas
Form the main body of the filling, providing flavour and a soft, moist texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue that sets and browns on top of the tarts.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the meringue whip and brown.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness, fruity flavour and moisture to the banana filling.
Short or flaky pastry
Forms the crisp case and lattice that hold the filling.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites with the remaining sugar to make a meringue.. Egg whites must be whipped to stiff, glossy peaks with sugar added gradually so the foam holds its structure. Under-whipped or greasy whites will weep or fail to brown well when returned to the oven.

Swap the banana

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, rose, apricot, egg, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, rose, apricot, egg, 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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