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Dessert

Cranberry Tart

A tart made with cranberries simmered in boiling water, sweetened, baked in a flaky crust, finished with an egg yolk and milk glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 88,785 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cranberry Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Make the filling

  1. Combine cranberries and boiling water in a pot.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Cook gently, stirring frequently, and mash the berries for about 1½ hours.

  4. Remove from heat and stir in sugar to taste.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a pie dish with flaky pie crust.

  2. Pour the cranberry mixture into the crust.

  3. Create a lattice with strips of crust on top and arrange the edges neatly.

  4. Bake for about 15 minutes.

  5. Brush the top of the crust with a mixture of egg yolk and milk, then return to the oven until nicely browned.

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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Cranberries
Provide the tart flavour and, once cooked and mashed, the thick body of the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart cranberry filling and balances its acidity.
Egg yolk
Gives the lattice crust a glossy, browned finish when brushed on top.
Flaky pie crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and bakes into a flaky shell.

The step that matters

Cook the cranberries gently and long enough. Cranberries are high in pectin and acid, and slow cooking with stirring lets the berries break down and thicken into a spreadable filling. Rushing this or letting it scorch leaves a runny or burnt-tasting filling.

“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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