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Dessert

Sand Tarts

A sweet pastry made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and granulated sugar, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sand Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and light brown sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks and 1 egg white (beaten) to the mixture and mix well.

  4. Stir in the flour and baking powder until combined.

  5. Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.

Top and bake

  1. Spread the reserved beaten egg white over the rolled dough.

  2. Sprinkle ground cinnamon and granulated sugar on top.

  3. Cut the dough into squares with a knife.

  4. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, helping the cookie stay short and crisp.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the surface brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure, while the beaten white gives the topping a glossy coat.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin rolled dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven, giving the cookie a light, tender lift.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly golden. Thin dough browns quickly and can go from golden to dry or burnt in minutes. Pulling it when lightly golden keeps it crisp but tender, since it keeps firming as it cools.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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