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 À LA Trevor
Ingredients
Directions
Roll out the rich short paste thinly and bake carefully.
Cut triangles about two inches long from the baked paste.
Once cooled, spread the triangles with rich jam or jelly.
Cut the almond paste into tiny triangles and stick them around the edges with a little icing.
Place a spot of whipped cream in the center of each tartlet.
Brush the edges of the triangles with egg white and dip in colored sugar if desired.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + creamtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
Swap the almond
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sugar, egg):
- Almondthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Chestnutfits less well
- Pecansfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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