Name: Sand Tarts
Ingredients: 2 eggs, well beaten; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 3 tablespoons water; flour, for rolling; sugar, for sprinkling; cinnamon, for sprinkling; raisins or almonds, for sprinkling

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Sand Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, combine the beaten eggs, baking soda, and water.
Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Bake and serve

Sprinkle the tops with sugar, cinnamon, and either raisins or almonds.
Bake in the preheated oven 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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda: Reacts to lift the dough slightly and promote gentle browning.
Flour: Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure for rolling and cutting.

“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.