Skip to main content
Dessert

Cinnamon Tart

A pastry made with flour, sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, and topped with jam or stewed apples, nutmeg, and almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cinnamon Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the paste

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

  2. In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and cinnamon.

  3. Rub in the butter until well combined.

  4. Add the egg and mix into a paste.

Assemble the tart

  1. Divide the paste into four parts, roll out each part thinly and place it on a buttered plate.

  2. Cover the center with raspberry jam or cold stewed apples, and sprinkle with grated nutmeg.

  3. Cover with more paste and sprinkle the top with chopped almonds.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until golden brown and serve hot with cream or custard.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the paste that holds the tart together.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Egg
Binds the dough into a single paste.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lighten the crust.

The step that matters

Add the egg and mix into a paste. Mixing only until the egg is evenly combined keeps the paste tender. Overworking develops gluten in the flour, which makes the crust tough and dense rather than short.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, almond. 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.

You might also like

Raspberry JamRaspberry Jam150 recipesRaspberry CreamRaspberry Cream82 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipes