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Dessert

Chocolate Tart

A baked chocolate tart made with sugar, egg yolks, spices, melted chocolate, almonds, lemon juice, baking powder, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar and egg yolks until well combined.

  2. Add cinnamon, cloves, allspice, melted chocolate, chopped almonds, lemon juice, and baking powder, and mix well.

  3. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a tart pan and bake for 25-30 minutes or until set.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Allspice + lemontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped whites trap air, giving the tart a light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and help bind the batter as it sets.
Chocolate
Melted chocolate supplies the main flavour and fat, giving a dense, rich texture.
Almonds
Finely chopped almonds add body, nutty flavour and a tender crumb.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the tart rise and lighten.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart and helps the yolks thicken and stabilise the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped. Folding gently keeps that air in the batter, so the tart rises lightly instead of deflating and turning dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cinnamon, clove, allspice, chocolate, 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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