Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Tart

A baked tart of sliced apples with cloves, sugar, lemon, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple 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 the apples

  1. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into quarters.

  2. Place an upside‑down egg cup in the center of a dish and fill it with the apple quarters.

  3. Add the cloves, sugar, and a little water.

  4. Add a slice of lemon for extra flavor.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover the dish with puff pastry.

  2. Bake in a 400 °F (200 °C) oven for 30 minutes.

  3. If the apples are not fully cooked, place the dish on the stove to finish cooking.

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 + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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 fruit filling that softens and becomes sweet and tender when baked.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps create a syrupy juice around the apples.
Rough or good puff paste
Forms the flaky, buttery crust that bakes golden over the apples.

The step that matters

Checking that the apples are fully cooked. Apple quarters need enough heat to soften through the centre. If they are still firm when the pastry is done, the texture will be uneven, so check them and finish on the stove if needed.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, clove, sugar):

  1. Quincefits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, clove, sugar. 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.

More apple tart recipes

German 11Creamed 9Banana 3Young Green 3 See all 113 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes