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Dessert

Sand Tarts

A sweet pastry made with sugar, flour, butter, sweet milk, baking powder, egg yolks, topped with almonds, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sand Tarts

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 the dough

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

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

  3. Add the flour, sweet milk, baking powder, and egg yolks; mix until smooth.

  4. Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick.

  5. Cut into 3-inch squares.

Top and bake

  1. Spread the squares with egg white.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Top each square with one or more almonds.

  4. 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. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, sprinkled on top, adds a crisp sugary crust.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and rich.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and cut.
Egg yolks
Add richness and binding so the dough holds together smoothly.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise slightly and stay light.
Egg white
Brushed on the squares, it helps the sugar and cinnamon stick and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough to about ¼ inch thick. Even thickness makes the squares bake at the same rate, so thin spots do not burn while thick spots stay doughy.

“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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