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Dessert

Banberry Tarts

A tart made with raisins, walnuts, lemon, sugar, and egg in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Walnut and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,149 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Banberry Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Beat the egg in a bowl, then add sugar, lemon juice, walnuts, and raisins.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Roll out the pie crust and cut it into oblong shapes, about 3 inches by 3.5 inches.

  3. Place one heaping teaspoon of the fruit mixture on one half of each pie crust piece.

  4. Fold over the other half, press the edges together, and bake until golden.

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. Walnut + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,149 recipes

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

  2. Raisin + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together647 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

  4. Raisin + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,742 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Binds the filling together and adds richness to the fruit mixture.
Walnuts
Add crunch and body to the filling.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and moisture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet filling.

The step that matters

Press the edges together before baking. If the edges are not sealed well, the filling can leak out in the oven and the tarts may open up. A firm seal holds the filling in as the pastry heats and sets.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, sugar, lemon. 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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