Skip to main content
Dessert

Bonbon Tartlets, Rose-pink

Small almond paste tartlets filled with red currant jelly and topped with rose-pink icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Currant and rose work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 494 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Bonbon Tartlets, Rose-pink

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.

Prepare the shells

  1. Prepare almond paste and roll it out very thin with sifted sugar on a clean surface.

  2. Use the rolled almond paste to line small tartlet pans that have been lightly buttered.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light fawn in color.

Fill and finish

  1. Fill each tartlet with red‑currant jelly, leaving an eighth of an inch from the edge.

  2. Dry the filled tartlets for ten minutes in a cool place.

  3. Cover the tartlets with rose‑pink transparent icing.

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 + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together494 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,465 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Butter + curranttop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,856 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Almond paste
Forms the tender, cake-like shell that holds the filling.
Red-currant jelly
Adds sweetness and tartness, and sets as a glossy layer in the shell.
Sifted sugar
Keeps the almond paste from sticking while rolling and adds sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake until light fawn. Almond paste browns quickly because of its sugar and nut content. Removing it at light fawn keeps the shell tender and prevents bitterness from over-browning.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, sugar, butter, rose):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, butter, rose. 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.

You might also like

Red Currant JellyRed Currant Jelly65 recipesCurrant Ice CreamCurrant Ice Cream32 recipesAlmond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipes