Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Almond Tartlets
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 filling
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Beat in the egg, then add the chopped almonds, lemon juice, and lemon rind.
Make and line the pastry
Make the short crust pastry by mixing the flour with enough butter to form a dough.
Roll the pastry very thin and cut it into rounds. Line greased patty tins with the pastry rounds.
Fill and bake
Half fill the tins with the almond mixture.
Bake in the hot oven until the pastry is set, then reduce the heat to 300°F (150°C) and cook for 30 to 40 minutes until firm and pale brown.
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.
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Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour 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
- Almonds
- Provide the main flavour and a fine, tender texture in the filling.
- Butter
- Adds richness and helps bind the filling and the pastry dough.
- Sugar
- Creaming with butter adds sweetness and helps give the filling a light texture.
- Egg
- Binds the filling and helps it set firm when baked.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the short crust pastry shells.
The step that matters
Bake in two temperatures. The hot oven sets the pastry before the filling can soak it, while the lower heat lets the almond filling cook through and firm without over-browning. Skipping the drop in heat can leave the centre raw or the top too dark.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, butter, sugar, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against almond, butter, sugar, egg, flour. 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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