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Dessert

Common Lemon Tartlets

A tartlet filled with a lemon custard made from sugar, cornflour, butter, eggs, and lemon juice, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Common Lemon Tartlets

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Gradually add the sugar while whisking.

  3. Mix in the cornflour and melted butter.

  4. Add the strained lemon juice and grated rind, and beat well.

Fill and bake

  1. Line patty pans with thinly rolled puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry cases two-thirds full with the mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about twenty minutes.

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. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Bind the filling and set it into a soft custard when baked.
Pounded sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the eggs whisk to a light, airy texture.
Cornflour
Thickens the filling so it sets smoothly rather than runny.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Lemon juice and rind
Provides acidity and bright lemon aroma that cut the sweetness.

The step that matters

Beat the eggs until very light. Whisking eggs well traps air and gives the filling a light texture. Under-beaten eggs leave the custard dense, while the cornflour and eggs together set the filling in the oven.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, 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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