Skip to main content
Dessert

Custard Tarts

Custard tarts made with puff pastry shells filled with a thickened egg milk custard and topped with browned meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Custard Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the shells

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

  2. Roll out the puff paste very thin and line patty pans with it.

  3. Bake the lined pans until golden brown.

Make and fill

  1. In a saucepan, combine eggs, milk, cornstarch, sugar, and vanilla. Cook until thickened.

  2. Fill the baked pastry shells with the custard mixture.

Top and brown

  1. Top with meringue and brown in the oven.

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Thicken the custard as they set during cooking, giving it body and a smooth, sliceable texture.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard and adds richness and softness to the filling.
Cornstarch
Thickens the custard by swelling in heat, giving it a stable, spoonable consistency.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps balance the richness of the eggs and milk.
Best puff paste
Forms the flaky, buttery shell that holds the custard and bakes to a golden crust.

The step that matters

Cook the custard until thickened. Cornstarch must reach a simmer to swell and thicken fully, and eggs must be heated enough to set. Undercooked custard stays runny and can fail to hold its shape in the shell.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes