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Little French Tarts
1 pint strawberries, raspberries, Few grains salt blueberries, sliced peaches, apricots or stoned cherries 1½ tablespoons Argo or Kingsford's Cornstarch 3/4 cup Karo, Red Label 1/2 cup water Pastry shells If fresh fruit is used, it should be cooked in the combined syrup and water until tender-about ten minutes. If canned fruit is used, this cooking is not necessary. Thicken with the cornstarch mixed with an equal quantity of cold water, add the little cinnamon or nutmeg if the flavor is liked.
When partly cooled, pour into the pastry shells. salt and a
A corn-syrup fruit filling for pre-baked tart shells, from one of the promotional cookbooks issued by the makers of Argo cornstarch and Karo syrup. The method is sound; the branded ingredients and the vague shell count need translating.
- Karo Red LabelRed Label was the dark corn syrup in the Karo line, closer in color and flavor to today's dark corn syrup than to the light. Three-quarters of a cup is a lot of sweetness for a pint of fruit, so with very sweet peaches or cherries consider cutting it and making up the volume with water.
- "Combined syrup and water"This means the 3/4 cup Karo plus the 1/2 cup water, heated together as a poaching syrup. The fruit goes into it; the cornstarch comes later.
- Cornstarch slurryArgo and Kingsford's were both plain cornstarch sold by the same company, which is why the recipe lets you use either. Mix the 1 1/2 tablespoons with an equal quantity of cold water, stir into the simmering syrup, and let it bubble a full minute so the raw starch flavor cooks out and the gel sets.
- Ten minutes is for firm fruitSliced peaches, apricots and cherries will take about that long. Strawberries, raspberries and blueberries collapse in two or three minutes; poach them briefly, lift them out, thicken the syrup, then return the fruit.
- Pastry shellsNo quantity is given. A pint of fruit with this much syrup should fill something in the region of eight to ten small tartlet shells, or one 9-inch shell. The recipe gives no baking instructions for the shells; they need to be baked blind and fully before filling, or the syrup will soak the crust.
- Cool before filling"When partly cooled" matters: hot starch filling steams the pastry soft. Let it drop to about lukewarm, then fill, and serve the same day.
- SeasoningA few grains of salt go into the filling, and cinnamon or nutmeg is optional. Peaches and cherries take the spice well; berries are usually better plain, with a spoonful of lemon juice instead.
Corn syrup was still a relatively new grocery item when books like this one appeared: Karo was introduced in the early twentieth century, and its manufacturer, Corn Products Refining Company, which also sold Argo and Kingsford's cornstarch, published streams of small recipe pamphlets to teach cooks what to do with both products. Recipes such as this one exist to demonstrate that corn syrup could replace sugar in a fruit filling and that cornstarch could replace flour as a thickener, which is why every measurement here is tied to a brand name. Calling the result "little French tarts" was flattery of a familiar kind: individual glazed fruit tartlets were associated with the French patisserie window, and a shallow shell filled with cooked fruit in a shiny syrup was the domestic route to the same effect.