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Dessert

Banana and Apple Tart

A fruit tart made with sliced apples and bananas, topped with sugar and syrup, and covered with a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and banana match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 435 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana and Apple Tart

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

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Assemble the tart

  1. Make a crust using flour and fresh batter.

  2. Line a dish with the crust.

  3. Slice the apples and bananas, then place them in the dish.

  4. Add sugar and syrup to the fruit.

  5. Cover the fruit with the crust.

  6. Brush melted butter over the top and sprinkle with white sugar.

Bake

  1. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden 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. Apple + bananatop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together435 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the crust that holds the tart together.
Apples
Provide the main fruit body and tartness as they soften during baking.
Bananas
Add soft texture and natural sweetness to the fruit filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the fruit and helps it caramelize at the edges.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the top brown evenly.

The step that matters

Brush melted butter over the top and sprinkle with white sugar. Butter and sugar on the surface promote browning and a crisp, golden top. Covering the fruit fully with the crust before this step keeps the filling moist while it bakes.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, banana, sugar, syrup, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Peachfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, banana, sugar, syrup, butter. 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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