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Dessert

Raspberry Tart with Cream

A puff pastry tart filled with raspberries, red currants, and a sweet cream custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Raspberry Tart with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Lay puff pastry in a large pie dish.

  3. Add raspberries and red currants, then sweeten with sugar.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover with a thin lid of puff pastry and bake until golden.

  2. In a bowl, mix warm cream, beaten egg yolks, and a little sugar.

  3. Cut the tart open and pour the cream mixture inside.

  4. Return to the oven for 5-6 minutes.

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

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

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Red currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,156 recipes

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

  5. Red currant + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together345 recipes

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

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

Puff paste
Forms a flaky, crisp pastry case and lid that hold the filling.
Raspberries
Provide the main fruit flavour, tartness and juicy moisture to the filling.
Red currants
Add sharp acidity that balances the sweetness of the sugar and fruit.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and the custard and helps the fruit release juice.
2 egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture into a rich, soft custard when gently heated.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the custard a smooth, silky texture.

The step that matters

Pouring the cream mixture into the baked tart. Egg yolks set when heated, so the custard can curdle or turn grainy if the cream is too hot or overbaked. Keeping the return bake short lets it set gently while the pastry stays crisp.

Swap the red currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Red currantthe original

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