Skip to main content
Dessert

With Almonds

A puff pastry tart filled with a sweet almond mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

With Almonds

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. Blanch the sweet and bitter almonds, then pound them with rose water.

  2. Mix the pounded almonds with melted butter, beaten eggs, lemon rind and juice, cream, milk, and sugar, and stir all ingredients well together.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a dish with puff paste.

  2. Pour in the almond mixture.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard as they cook, giving the filling structure and body.
Sweet almonds
Provide the main nutty flavour and a rich, moist body to the filling.
Melted butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture in the baked filling.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, making the filling softer and more tender.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the surface brown during baking.
Puff paste
Forms the crisp, flaky base that holds the almond filling.

The step that matters

Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes. Eggs set the filling as they heat. Too hot an oven can curdle or puff the custard and burn the surface before the centre sets, so keep the temperature moderate.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, rose, butter, egg, cream, milk, sugar. 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.

More almond tart recipes

You might also like