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Dessert

Lemon Tahts

A lemon tart made by mixing lemon juice and zest with eggs and sugar, cooked in a water bath.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Tahts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the lemon filling

  1. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and grate a little of the peel.

  2. Add the eggs and sugar, then beat well.

  3. Cook in a pail standing in boiling water for about 20 minutes, stirring constantly until thickened.

Fill the tarts

  1. Let it cool slightly before filling the tarts.

  2. If the lemon is very juicy, add the tablespoon of flour.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Set as they cook, giving the filling its thick, sliceable body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the sharp lemon juice.
Lemon
Provides the main acidity and bright aroma from juice and peel.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer, smoother texture in the filling.
Flour
Thickens the filling by starch, helping it hold when the juice is very wet.

The step that matters

Cook gently in the water bath while stirring. Egg proteins set as they heat, so cooking slowly over boiling water with constant stirring thickens the filling evenly. Too much direct heat or too little stirring can scramble the eggs and leave lumps.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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