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Congress Tarts

A sweet tart made with sugar, eggs, flour, almonds, pastry dough, and finished with vanilla icing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,961 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Congress Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sugar and eggs until well combined.

  2. Gradually add the flour and chopped almonds, mixing until smooth.

Bake and ice

  1. Line patty pans with sweet pastry dough.

  2. Fill the lined pans with the batter.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

  4. While hot, ice the tarts with vanilla 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. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  4. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Granulated sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the tarts brown as they bake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together when baked.
Chopped almonds
Add richness, nutty flavour and a tender texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking long enough sets the eggs and flour into a firm filling, while stopping at golden keeps the sugar from scorching and turning bitter.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Macadamia nutfits less well
  4. Hazelnutfits less well

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