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Lemon Tart

A tart made with lemon rind, almonds, sugar, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Tart

Why it works: Lemon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Lemon Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Pare the rinds of the lemons thickly and boil them tender in two waters, then beat them fine.

  2. Add the sliced almonds, lump sugar, lemon juice, and grated peel to the mixture.

  3. Simmer the mixture until it forms a syrup.

Assemble and bake

  1. Once cold, pour it into a shallow tart dish lined with puff pastry.

  2. Lay bars of puff pastry over the top.

  3. Bake until the pastry is golden and cooked through, then remove from the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Lemons
Provide the zest, peel and juice that give the tart its bright, sharp flavour.
Blanched almonds
Add body and a nutty texture to the filling.
Lump sugar
Sweetens the filling and, when simmered, thickens it into a syrup.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky shell and top that bake to golden brown.

The step that matters

Simmering the mixture until it forms a syrup. Simmering drives off water and concentrates the sugar and lemon, so the filling sets firm rather than runny. Stop too early and the tart may be loose; cook too long and it turns sticky and overly thick.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, 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.

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