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Dessert

Vienna Tart

A puff pastry tart filled with lemon custard, peaches, green grapes, cherries, and topped with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Vienna Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pastry

  1. Roll out the puff pastry and line a pie plate with it.

  2. Bake the pastry at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, heat the milk and sugar until dissolved.

  2. Whisk the eggs in a bowl, then add the lemon zest and juice.

  3. Combine the egg mixture with the milk and sugar, stirring until smooth.

  4. Pour the custard into the baked pastry and let it firm up.

Decorate and serve

  1. Arrange the halved peaches around the edge, place green grapes inside, and fill the center with cherries.

  2. Serve cold with whipped cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + peachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  3. Lemon + peachtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together947 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the custard so it firms up into a sliceable filling.
Milk
Provides the liquid base of the custard, giving it a soft, creamy texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and helps it dissolve smoothly into the milk.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, golden shell that holds the custard.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich custard.

The step that matters

Pour the custard into the baked pastry and let it firm up. Eggs set as they heat, so the custard needs to be fully cooked and then cooled to firm. Pouring it into pastry that is already baked keeps the base crisp rather than soggy.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, peach, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, peach, cream. 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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