Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Tart

Apple Tart is a baked pastry with apple filling and a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Rub the butter into the flour until crumbly.

  3. Add water gradually to form a soft dough.

Fill the dish

  1. Place the quartered apples in a dish.

  2. Add cloves to the apples.

  3. Add lemon zest to the apples.

  4. Pour ½ cup of water over the apples.

  5. Sweeten the apples with sugar to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Moisten the edge of the dish with a mixture of egg yolk and water.

  2. Roll out a border of paste and place it on the edge.

  3. Roll out the remaining paste to cover the dish.

  4. Trim excess paste from the dish.

  5. Crimp the edges of the dish.

  6. Make small holes in the top for steam to escape.

  7. Brush the top with the egg wash.

  8. Bake until golden brown.

  9. Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the pastry once mixed with water.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to make the pastry tender and flaky.
Cooking apples
Provide the main filling, becoming soft and tart as they bake.
Egg yolk
Mixed with water to make an egg wash that browns the pastry top.
Sugar
Sweetens the apples to balance their tartness.

The step that matters

Make small holes in the top for steam to escape. Steam trapped under the pastry builds pressure and can lift or split the crust, so vents let it escape while the apples cook.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, apple, lemon, sugar, 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.

More apple tart recipes

German 11Creamed 9Banana 3Young Green 3 See all 113 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes