Skip to main content
Dessert

Filbert Tart

A tart made with ground filbert kernels, orange flower water, powdered sugar, eggs, flour, marmalade, and maraschino icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Orange and peach match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 385 recipes. Both carry pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Filbert Tart

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.

Make the batter

  1. Grind the filbert kernels fine with the orange flower water.

  2. Mix in the powdered sugar gradually.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks, then the flour.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Layer and bake

  1. Spread the mixture into three layers, each ½ inch thick.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  3. Spread marmalade between each layer.

Finish

  1. Ice the top with maraschino icing.

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. Orange + peachtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together385 recipes

    Shared aroma: pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + peachtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together787 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Filbert kernels
Provide the main nutty body and bulk of the batter.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, giving the layers lift and a light texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter as it sets.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and fine texture to the batter.
Flour
Gives the layers enough structure to hold their shape when baked.
Peach or apricot marmalade
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Folding keeps the air whipped into the egg whites intact. Stirring vigorously deflates the foam, leaving the layers dense rather than light after baking.

Swap the filbert

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Filbertthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against orange, sugar, egg, flour, peach. 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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipesOrange SherbetOrange Sherbet73 recipes