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Dessert

Cranberry Tart

A tart of cranberries and optional raisins baked in a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,481 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Cranberry Tart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Prick the cranberries with a needle.

  2. In a bowl, combine cranberries, raisins (if using), and sugar.

  3. Line a pie dish with the pie crust and brush the bottom with egg white.

  4. Pour the cranberry mixture into the crust.

Bake

  1. Cover with parchment paper and bake at 400°F (200°C) until the cranberries burst.

  2. Remove the paper and bake for an additional 15 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. Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Raisin + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,556 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cranberries
Provide the tart's tart fruit filling and bulk, bursting to form a juicy filling.
Sugar
Sweetens the tart and balances the sharp flavour of the cranberries.
Egg white
Brushed on the crust bottom to help seal it against the juicy filling.
Pie crust
Forms the base that holds the cranberry filling while it bakes.

The step that matters

Pricking the cranberries. Pricking breaks the skins so the berries release their juice and burst while baking, letting the filling set into a cohesive, jammy texture rather than staying whole and watery.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Lemonfits about as well
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg. 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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