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Dessert

Sand Tart

A sweet cake made with flour, rice powder, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, 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.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the white flour and rice powder or wheat starch, and keep 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 mixture, and stir for 30 minutes.

  4. Incorporate the lemon rind, lemon juice, and flavoring extract.

  5. Beat the egg whites and mix lightly with the dough, then add the baking powder.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,645 recipes

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

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 structure of the cake as the dough sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and creaming with sugar for a fine texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter to trap air and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the fat, giving a tender crumb.
Egg whites
Beaten air bubbles lighten the dough and help it rise and set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to make the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake with the heat adjusted from bottom to top and do not move the tin. Moving the tin during baking can knock air out of the rising batter and cause it to sink or crack. Adjusting bottom heat controls browning so the base does not scorch before the centre sets.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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