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Dessert

Chocolate Tarts

A baked tart with a wheatmeal crust and chocolate custard filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the custard

  1. Mix the milk with the ground rice.

  2. Gradually add the chocolate, stirring until smooth.

  3. Heat the mixture over medium heat until it thickens, then let it cool slightly.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs.

Make the crust

  1. Combine the wheatmeal and butter with a little cold water to form a paste.

  2. Line a greased pie plate with the paste.

Bake the tart

  1. Pour the cooled custard into the lined plate.

  2. Bake the tart for 30 minutes in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Butter + ricetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs set the custard when heated, giving it body and structure.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and thickens with the ground rice and heat.
Ground rice
Starch that thickens the milk and gives the custard a smooth, sliceable texture.
Allinson chocolate
Provides the main flavour and, as it melts, adds richness to the custard.
Allinson fine wheatmeal
Forms the flour base of the paste that holds the tart shell together.
Butter
Adds fat to the pastry paste, contributing tenderness and flavour.

The step that matters

Cooling the custard before pouring. Heating the custard until it thickens and then letting it cool slightly keeps the hot liquid from thinning the pastry and lets the eggs set evenly in the oven rather than curdling or leaking.

“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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