Why it works: Sugar and lemon 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 ↓
Cranberry 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.
Prepare and fill
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, combine the washed cranberries, sugar, and lemon juice.
Pour the mixture into a tart shell.
Bake and serve
Bake until the cranberries are tender, then let it cool.
Serve cold.
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.
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Sugar and lemon 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
- Cranberries
- Provide the tart flavor and, as they soften in the oven, the body of the filling.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the tart berries and helps them break down into a soft, spoonable filling.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sweetness of the sugar.
The step that matters
Bake until the cranberries are tender. Cranberries must be cooked until their skins burst and the pulp softens, otherwise the filling stays firm and sharply sour. Judge by tenderness rather than the clock, then let the filling cool so it sets.
“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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