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Dessert

Grated Apple Tart

A tart filled with grated apples, lemon zest, egg, and butter, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Grated Apple Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Grate the apples, ensuring they are juicy.

  2. Mix the grated apples with the juice and grated rind of the lemon, the beaten egg, and melted butter.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a lower crust.

  2. Top with strips of crust crossed over the tart.

  3. Bake until 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. 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. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and moisture that becomes the tart's soft interior.
Egg
Binds the grated apple mixture so it sets rather than running loose when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture to the filling.
Lemon
Its juice and rind add acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the apples.

The step that matters

Grate the apples while they are juicy. Juicy apples supply the liquid the filling needs. Apples that are dry or tough give less juice and a firmer texture, so the filling can bake unevenly or turn out dry.

Swap the apple

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

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

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