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Dessert

Tarts, or Tartlets

A puff pastry tart filled with jam or stewed apple, topped with pastry strings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 777 recipes. Both carry gamma-undecalactone, which smells peach, sweet. The science ↓

Tarts, or Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

  2. Roll out the puff pastry to ¼ inch thick and line tart or tartlet pans.

  3. Trim the edges with a sharp knife.

Fill and bake

  1. Fill the pans with your choice of raspberry jam, apricot jam, orange marmalade, or stewed apple.

  2. Create fine strings of pastry on top in your preferred design.

  3. Bake until golden, being careful not to over-brown the top.

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 + appletop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together777 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-undecalactone (peach, sweet).

  2. Raspberry + apricottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together257 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apricot + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together703 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  4. Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Raspberry + orangetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together521 recipes

    Shared aroma: damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered crust that holds the filling and browns in the oven.
Raspberry jam
Provides sweetness and fruit flavour, and sets into a glossy filling as it heats.
Apricot jam
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity while staying moist under the pastry strips.
Orange marmalade
Contributes bittersweet citrus flavour and a thick, spreadable texture.
Stewed apple
Adds soft, moist fruit body and mild sweetness to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, without over-browning the top. Puff pastry relies on steam from its butter layers to rise, and the sugar in the jam and pastry browns quickly. Watching the colour lets the pastry fully cook and turn golden without the sugars scorching or the top burning before the base is done.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raspberry, apricot, apple):

  1. Peachfits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Plumfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raspberry, apricot, apple. 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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