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Cheese-tartlets

Cheese tartlets are small pastry shells filled with a parmesan and egg custard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cheese-tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slack oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line the tartlet moulds with thinly rolled puff pastry.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine flour, grated parmesan, and yolks of eggs.

  2. Add butter and a pinch of sugar, stirring over low heat until the butter melts.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool, then fold in the whipped egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill the moulds with the mixture and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the oven until set, then sprinkle with grated parmesan and serve immediately.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs yolks
Bind the filling and add richness and a set structure when baked.
Whipped egg whites
Add air to the filling so the tartlets rise and turn light and tender.
Parmesan
Adds savory, salty flavor and browning on the cheese-topped surface.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, smooth texture and flavor in the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling so it holds its shape while baking.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites. Once the base has cooled, folding gently keeps the air in the whites. Stirring them in hard deflates the foam, so the tartlets bake flatter and denser.

“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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