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Tarte Au Citron

Mary Berry lets us into her secrets for a classic lemon tart. It can be made up to two days in advance, but don’t decorate it until just before serving.

By bbcfood · From Open Recipes · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 41,516 recipes mention both. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tarte Au Citron

Serves 8
Prep2 hr
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Step-by-step directions aren't available for this recipe. See the full recipe at the source →

By bbcfood. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 124,287 recipes mention both: they likely work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

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

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Raisinbetter flavor fit
  3. Coconutabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).