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Dessert

Christmas Almond Tart

A baked almond tart made with almonds, stale bread, eggs, sugar, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Christmas Almond Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Blanch and finely chop the almonds.

  2. Mix the chopped almonds with the grated stale bread.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and egg whites separately until very light.

Make the batter

  1. Add the sugar, bread mixture, lemon juice, and lemon rind to the beaten eggs.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking dish and bake at 300°F (150°C) for 1 hour.

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Almond + breadtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  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

Almonds
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the tart.
Egg whites
Beaten to a foam, they give the tart its light, airy structure as it sets.
Egg yolks
Enrich the mixture and help it set into a tender, custard-like texture.
Stale bread
Adds body and helps bind the almonds into the batter.
White sugar
Sweetens the tart and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the egg yolks and whites separately until very light. Whipping air into the eggs gives the tart its light structure. Under-beaten eggs leave the bake dense, while over-beaten whites can turn dry and grainy, so the whites should be beaten until very light rather than stiff.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, 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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