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Apricot Tartlets

Apricot Tartlets are puff pastry cups filled with apricots, jam, and whipped egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,630 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry very thin and cut rounds with a cutter.

  2. Cut thicker rings of the same size and join them with egg white.

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

Fill and finish

  1. Once cooled, place an apricot in each tartlet with the hollow side up.

  2. Add a spoonful of apricot jam to each tartlet.

  3. Whip the egg whites with caster sugar and vanilla or almond flavoring until stiff.

  4. Pile a little whipped egg white on each tartlet and garnish with a cherry.

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

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

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

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

  3. Apricot + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,712 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

Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky tartlet shell that holds the filling.
Egg whites
Glue the pastry rings together and whip into a stiff, airy topping.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and a glossy fruit layer inside each tartlet.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the whipped egg whites and helps them hold their stiff structure.
Apricots
Provide the main fresh fruit flavor and juicy centre of each tartlet.

The step that matters

Baking the pastry until golden. Puff pastry needs to be rolled thin and baked fully so the layers rise and crisp. Underbaked pastry stays doughy and soggy under the fruit and jam.

Swap the apricot

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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