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Dessert

Apple Tarts

Apple tarts made with boiled apples, lemon, butter, sugar, eggs, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the filling

  1. Boil the apples in ½ cup of water until soft.

  2. Sift and beat the apples until smooth, then add the beaten egg yolks, lemon juice, lemon rind, butter, and sugar. Adjust sweetness if necessary.

  3. Line small tart tins with puff pastry and fill with the apple mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  2. Whip the egg whites with 6 tablespoons of powdered sugar and spread over the tarts.

  3. Return to the oven and brown slightly.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Cooked and beaten to a smooth purée that forms the body of the filling.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the filling; whipped whites form a light, browning topping.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender, smooth texture to the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the topping brown when returned to the oven.
Lemon
Juice and rind add acidity and bright aroma to balance the sweet apple filling.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky crust that holds the apple filling in each tart.

The step that matters

Returning the tarts to the oven. Meringue-style whipped whites can scorch quickly once they start to colour. Watch closely and stop when they are only lightly browned, because sugar darkens fast at high heat.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Applethe original

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