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Dessert

Orange Tart

A tart with a buttery pastry crust filled with orange custard and topped with whipped egg whites and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Orange Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line a buttered dish with puff pastry.

Make the filling

  1. Beat the butter and ¼ cup sugar until creamy.

  2. Add cake crumbs, egg yolks, milk, grated orange rind, and orange juice; mix well.

  3. Pour the mixture into the prepared pastry and bake for about 30 minutes.

Top and serve

  1. Beat the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold in ¼ cup sugar.

  2. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the tart and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

  3. Return to the oven until the top is golden brown.

  4. Serve hot or cold.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

  3. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture.
Egg whites
Whipped into a meringue topping that gives a light, golden crust.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the filling mixture.
Cake crumbs
Soak up liquid and give the filling body and a soft, tender texture.
Orange juice
Provides acidity and bright citrus flavour to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps stabilise the whipped egg white topping.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites until stiff. Under-whipped whites will not hold a peak and the topping will deflate or spread. Over-whipped whites turn dry and grainy and crack in the oven. Folding gently keeps the air in the foam.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, nuts. 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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