Name: Apricot Tart
Ingredients: apricots; sugar; butter; flour; water; salt

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apricot 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Prepare the tart crust by mixing flour, butter, sugar, and a pinch of salt with enough water to form a dough.
Roll out the dough and fit it into a tart pan.

Assemble and bake

Slice the apricots and arrange them on the crust.
Sprinkle sugar over the apricots.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until the crust is golden and the apricots are tender.

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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,458 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,630 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour: Forms the structure of the tart crust once mixed into a dough.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the crust tender and helps it brown.
Apricots: Provide the fruit filling, softening and becoming tender as they bake.
Sugar: Sweetens the crust and apricots and promotes browning on the crust.