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Dessert

Apricot Tarts

Apricot tarts made with puff pastry, sliced apricots, blanched almonds, sugar, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Apricot Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Peel, stone, and halve the apricots.

  2. Line a pie plate or small tart pans with puff pastry and brush with egg white.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pack the halved apricots in layers on the crust, placing a blanched almond in each half.

  2. Press the first layer in with cut sides down to hide the almonds, then place the second layer with rounded sides down to show the almond pits.

  3. Sprinkle generously with sugar and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

  3. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + almondtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, crisp base that holds the fruit while baking.
Ripe apricots
Provide the fruit filling, whose juices soften slightly and add moisture to the tart.
Sugar
Sweetens the apricots and helps them caramelize and brown at the edges.
Egg white
Brushed on the crust to seal it and promote light browning.
Blanched almonds
Add a nutty aroma and flavor that pairs with the apricots.

The step that matters

Pressing the first apricot layer. Pressing the first layer cut side down helps the fruit settle into an even layer and hides the almonds. Too much pressure can squeeze out juice and make the pastry soggy, while too little leaves gaps and uneven baking.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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