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Dessert

Sand Tarts

Sand tarts are buttery pastries with almonds and nutmeg, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. 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.

Make the dough

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

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

  3. Add the eggs and grated nutmeg, mixing well.

  4. Gradually incorporate the flour until a dough forms.

  5. Beat 3 of the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold into the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough as thin as possible and cut into shapes.

  2. Place the shapes on a baking pan.

  3. Brush the tops with the remaining egg whites.

  4. Top each with almonds, then sprinkle with powdered sugar and ground cinnamon.

  5. Bake 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. Nutmeg + almondtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to give the dough richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Creamed with butter and adds sweetness and helps the tops brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure, and the whites add lightness when beaten.
Flour
Forms the dough's structure once gradually incorporated.
Blanched almonds
Add texture and a crunchy topping on each cookie.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes quickly and crisply, while thick dough stays soft inside and may not set evenly. Overworking the dough after adding flour can also make it tough.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

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