Skip to main content
Dessert

Spanish Tart

A sweet tart made with flour, eggs, sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, butter, topped with apple marmalade and decorated with icing and jellies.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Spanish 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 batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, eggs, sugar, corn starch, lemon zest, and melted butter. Stir the mixture until well combined.

  3. Divide the batter into two round pans and bake until golden.

Assemble and decorate

  1. Once baked, layer the tarts with apple marmalade mixed with a little rose flavor.

  2. Ice the top with punch icing and decorate with assorted colored jellies.

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 + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Corn + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,927 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Corn + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,345 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the batter as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Corn starch
Softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Melted butter
Adds fat for moisture, richness and a tender texture.
Apple marmalade
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture between the layers.

The step that matters

Baking until golden. Baking until golden, rather than pulling early, lets the eggs and starch set fully so the layers hold together when stacked and filled. Underbaked batter stays soft and can collapse under the marmalade.

Swap the apple

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

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

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

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes