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Dessert

Sand Tart

A lemon and rum cake made with flour, rice powder, butter, sugar, eggs, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,366 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Sand Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix the flour and rice powder in a warm place.

  2. Melt the butter, cool it, and cream it with the sugar.

  3. Add the egg yolks, alternating with the flour, and stir for 30 minutes.

  4. Add the lemon rind, lemon juice, and rum.

  5. Beat the egg whites and mix them lightly with the dough.

  6. Add the baking powder and mix well.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1.5 to 2 hours.

  2. For the first 30 minutes, have more heat at the bottom than at the top.

  3. For the last 30 minutes, reduce heat at the bottom.

  4. Do not move the cake tin while baking.

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. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + rumtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,007 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + rumtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,908 recipes

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

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

White flour
Provides the main starch structure that sets the crumb as the cake bakes.
Rice powder or wheat starch
Adds a lighter, more tender texture by diluting the gluten-forming flour.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavour through the crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the creamed butter hold air for a lighter texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough into a smooth batter.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lift and an airy texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only while whipped, so mixing them too vigorously deflates them and leaves a denser cake. Stir them in lightly to keep the rise.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, butter, sugar, egg, rum):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, butter, sugar, egg, rum. 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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