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Almond Tarts

Almond tarts made with puff pastry, almond filling, and a sweet egg white topping.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Almond Tarts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the almond filling

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the pounded almonds and mix well.

Bake the tarts

  1. Line tart tins with puff pastry and fill with the almond mixture.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 8 minutes.

  3. Whip the egg whites and mix in the powdered sugar.

  4. Spread the egg white mixture on top of the tarts.

  5. Return to the oven and brown delicately.

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. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  2. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  3. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a creamy, tender texture.
Shelled almonds
Provide the bulk and nutty flavour of the filling.
Egg whites
Whipped into a foam that tops the tarts and browns in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the yolks whip to a creamy texture.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell that holds the almond filling.

The step that matters

Return to the oven and brown delicately. The egg white topping can over-darken quickly because sugar caramelises at high heat. Watching it closely keeps the colour golden rather than burnt.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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.

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