Skip to main content
Dessert

Tartlets a LA Trevor

Tartlets à la Trevor are pastry triangles filled with jam, almond paste, and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Tartlets a LA Trevor

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Roll out the rich short paste thinly and bake carefully.

  2. Cut triangles about two inches long from the baked paste.

  3. Once cooled, spread the triangles with rich jam or jelly.

Decorate and finish

  1. Cut the almond paste into tiny triangles and stick them around the edges using a little white icing.

  2. Place a spot of whipped cream in the center of each tartlet.

  3. Brush the edges of the triangles with egg white and dip in coloured sugar, or leave plain if preferred.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Rich short paste
Forms the crisp, sturdy shell that holds the filling.
Rich jam or jelly
Adds sweetness and a glossy layer over the base.
Almond paste
Provides a sweet, nutty flavour in the decorative edging.
Whipped cream
Adds a light, soft topping that contrasts with the crisp base.
White of egg
Acts as a glue so the edging and sugar stick to the pastry.

The step that matters

Bake the paste carefully. Rich short paste is high in butter and sugar, so it browns quickly and can burn or turn brittle if over-baked. Even, watchful baking gives a crisp, evenly coloured shell that stays sturdy under the jam and cream.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits less well
  4. Pecansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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.

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesAlmond WafersAlmond Wafers22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipes