Name: Crumble Tart
Ingredients: 1 cup chopped dates; 1 cup chopped pecans; 1 cup sugar; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking powder

Why it works: Dates and pecans share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Crumble 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.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and bake

In a bowl, mix together the chopped dates, chopped pecans, sugar, eggs, and baking powder until well combined.
Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.
Bake for 30 minutes.

Serve

Serve cold in glasses with whipped cream on top.

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.

Dates + pecanstop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together88 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pecans + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,280 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Dates + sugartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together985 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Dates + eggtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together737 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the mixture and add structure as they set in the oven.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the batter, helping the tart rise and turn light.
Dates: Add moisture and natural sweetness to the filling.
Pecans: Add texture and a toasty, nutty flavour to the filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown lightly as it bakes.