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Dessert

Lemon Tarts

A tart made with lemon juice, rind, sugar, eggs, sponge cake crumbs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Tarts

makes 12 tarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Line twelve patty pans with puff pastry.

Make and bake

  1. Mix the lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, eggs, and sponge cake crumbs until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into the lined pans.

  3. Bake until the crust is golden and done.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a soft custard as they cook.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps balance the tart acidity of the lemon.
Lemon juice and rind
Provide the sharp citrus acidity and aroma that define the filling.
Sponge cake crumbs
Add body to the filling and help thicken it as it bakes.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, golden crust that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is golden and done. Underbaked eggs in the filling stay runny and the pastry stays pale and soggy, while overbaking can make the egg filling curdle and dry. Watch for a golden crust and a filling that is just set.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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