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Dessert

Tartlets, Polish

Small puff pastry tartlets filled with apricot jam, marmalade, or red currant jelly, dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and currant work together. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 188 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Tartlets, Polish

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 pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry thinly and cut into 2½-inch squares.

  2. Brush each square with egg white and fold the corners to the center.

  3. Press the corners together.

  4. Brush with egg.

  5. Sift sugar on top.

Bake and fill

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 15 minutes.

  2. Make a small hole in the center.

  3. Fill with jam or jelly.

Serve

  1. Pile the tartlets high on a napkin.

  2. Garnish with the same preserve.

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 + curranttop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Sugar + apricottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Egg + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,734 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sugar + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,256 recipes

Sugar and currant 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

Puff pastry
Its layers puff and separate in the oven, giving the tartlets a light, flaky structure.
Egg white
Brushed on the pastry, it helps the surface set and take on a glossy, browned finish.
Pounded sugar
Sifted on top, it caramelises in the oven, adding sweetness and a crisp, browned surface.
Apricot jam
Fills the center, adding fruity sweetness and moisture that contrasts with the crisp pastry.
Red-currant jelly
Fills the center as an alternative filling, adding tart fruitiness and a glossy appearance.

The step that matters

Make the hole in the center. The center must be opened after baking so the filling sits in a well; if the pastry is pierced before it rises or the hole closes, the jam will spread and run out.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, apricot. 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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