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Apple Tarts

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. Pare, quarter, core, and boil the apples in ½ cup of water until very soft.

  2. Beat the apples until very smooth.

  3. Add the egg yolks (or whole eggs), lemon juice, lemon rind, butter, and sugar. Beat thoroughly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line small tart tins with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the tins with the apple mixture.

  3. Bake in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for 5 minutes.

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. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 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

Tart apples
Provide the bulk of the filling, cooking down into a soft, smooth purée that sets the texture.
Egg yolks or whole eggs
Bind the apple purée and help it set into a rich, custard-like filling when baked.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, more tender texture in the filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the tartness of the apples and lemon.
Lemon juice and rind
Add acidity and aromatic citrus flavour that brightens the sweet apple filling.

The step that matters

Beat the apples until very smooth. Apples that are not fully puréed leave lumps and uneven texture. Thorough beating after the apples are very soft gives a smooth filling that binds evenly with the eggs and butter.

Swap the apple

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

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

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