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Dessert

Fruit Tarts, or Fruit Pies

A tart or pie filled with fresh fruit and sugar, topped with a ½‑inch thick pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Currant and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 26% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,256 recipes. The science ↓

Fruit Tarts, or Fruit Pies

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 the fruit

  1. Wash and pick the fruit from the stalks.

  2. Place the fruit in a pie dish, highest in the middle.

  3. Sprinkle 4 ounces of sugar over the fruit.

Cover and bake

  1. Rub the edge of the dish with water to help the paste stick.

  2. Cover the fruit with the paste, ensuring it's about ½ inch thick.

  3. Seal the edges well and trim with a knife.

  4. Make a hole on each side just above the rim.

  5. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) until the crust is golden.

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. Currant + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Currant and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,256 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

Fresh fruit
Provides the main filling and its tart flavour, which the sugar balances.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and draws out juice that forms the filling.
Tart paste or puff paste
Forms the crust that encloses the fruit and browns in the oven.

The step that matters

Covering and sealing the paste. A poorly sealed edge lets juice from the fruit escape and boil over during baking, leaving the filling dry and the crust soggy. Wetting the dish rim helps the paste adhere.

“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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