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Dessert

Currant Tarts

A baked pastry filled with currants, butter, sugar, egg, lemon juice, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Currant 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.

Make the filling

  1. Cream the brown sugar and butter together until frothy.

  2. Add the unbeaten egg, lemon juice, nutmeg, and currants.

  3. Beat well until the mixture is light.

Fill and bake

  1. Line muffin tin compartments with quick puff pastry.

  2. Fill each compartment two-thirds full with the currant mixture.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 5 minutes.

  4. Decrease the heat and bake until light brown.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Nutmeg + curranttop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the filling brown as it bakes.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to add richness and a tender texture.
Egg
Binds the filling and helps it set as it bakes.
Currants
Provide the main fruit flavour and chewy pieces in the filling.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the filling.

The step that matters

Decrease the heat and bake until light brown. Starting hot sets the pastry and the filling quickly, but a hot oven left too long can scorch the sugar before the centre sets. Lowering the heat lets the filling cook through and brown gently.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, butter, nutmeg, egg. 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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