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Dessert

Cinnamon Tarts

Cinnamon tarts made with puff pastry, raspberry jam, and a cinnamon‑almond filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cinnamon Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the tarts

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry.

  2. Place a small teaspoon of raspberry jam into each pan.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about twelve minutes.

  4. Remove from the oven and prepare the mixture.

Make the topping

  1. Whip the egg white to stiff peaks.

  2. Gently mix the whipped egg white, castor sugar, chopped almonds, and cinnamon together.

Finish and bake

  1. Spoon the mixture onto each tart.

  2. Return to a cool part of the oven for about ten minutes.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Raspberry + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together326 recipes

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

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

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

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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, crisp case that holds the filling.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity flavour under the topping.
Egg white
Whipped to stiff peaks, it gives the topping a light, airy structure.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the topping and helps stabilise the whipped egg white.
Almonds
Add texture and a nutty flavour to the topping.

The step that matters

Gently mix the whipped egg white. Folding gently keeps the air in the whipped egg white. Overmixing deflates the foam, so the topping spreads flat and bakes dense instead of light.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

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