Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Cherry Tartlets
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Prepare the cherries
Remove the stalks from the cherries and place them in a small saucepan with the moist sugar.
Stand the saucepan in a larger one filled with boiling water and cook until the cherries are tender.
Bake the pastry
Meanwhile, line 5 or 6 deep tart pans with the pastry and fill them with rice, placing greased paper between the rice and the pastry.
Bake the pastry in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.
Assemble and finish
Once the cherries are cooked, strain the syrup into a small saucepan, add the beaten egg yolk, and stir over low heat until the custard thickens.
Fill the tart cases with cherries, cover with custard, and top with stiffly whisked egg white.
Sprinkle with caster sugar and return to the oven until the egg white hardens and colors slightly.
Serve hot or cold.
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.
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Short-crust pastry
- Forms a crisp case that holds the cherries and custard.
- Cooking cherries
- Provide tart fruit flavor and juice that cooks down into a syrup.
- Moist sugar
- Sweetens the cherries and helps form the syrup as they cook.
- Egg
- The yolk thickens the custard and the whisked white sets into a topping.
- Caster sugar
- Sweetens the topping and helps the egg white take on a light color.
The step that matters
Thickening the custard over low heat. Egg yolk thickens gently when heated slowly while stirred. If the heat is too high or stirring stops, the yolk can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth custard.
“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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