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Dessert

Apple Tart

Apple Tart is a baked dessert of stewed apples, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and melted butter in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple 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 the apples

  1. Stew the apples until soft, removing any hard pieces.

  2. Beat the softened apples to a pulp.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, combine the apple pulp, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and melted butter.

  2. Line a dish with puff pastry.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into the lined dish and bake immediately at 350°F (175°C) until set.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk, moisture and tart flavour of the filling.
Eggs
Set when heated, giving the filling its firm, sliceable structure.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, smooth texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the filling brown at the edges.
Lemon rind
Adds aroma and brightness that balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Bake immediately and until set. Eggs set with heat, so an overbaked filling turns dry and rubbery, while an underbaked one stays wet and runny in the middle. Check for a firm centre rather than relying on time alone.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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