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Dessert

Sand Tarts

Sand Tarts are sweet pastries made with sugar, flour, butter, eggs, and chopped almonds, dusted with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sand Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, butter, and eggs, kneading thoroughly.

  3. Roll out the dough into a thin sheet.

Decorate and bake

  1. Moisten the dough with the egg white using a feather.

  2. Sift powdered sugar and cinnamon over the moistened dough.

  3. Cut the dough into square cakes.

  4. Sprinkle or stick the chopped almonds on top.

  5. Bake in the preheated oven until browned.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender while it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness; the egg white brushed on helps the toppings stick.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin sheet and cut cakes together.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
Sweet almonds
Add nutty flavour and crunch to the topping.

The step that matters

Bake until browned. Sugar and proteins brown through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation, so the cakes need to be watched for colour. Pulling them too early leaves them pale and under-flavoured, while too long at this heat can scorch the sugar and dust.

“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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