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Dessert

Apple Tart

A baked tart of sliced apples, brown sugar, cloves, and short crust pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Pare and core the apples, then cut each apple into four or eight pieces.

  3. Place the apple pieces in a pie dish and season with brown sugar and cloves (or any spice like cinnamon or grated lemon peel).

Assemble and bake

  1. Add a little water and cover with short crust pastry.

  2. Make a small hole with a skewer above the rim at either end to allow steam to escape.

  3. Bake for about 1 hour.

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

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

  3. Sugar + clovetop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together17,182 recipes

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

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
Form the bulk of the filling and release moisture that softens them as they bake.
Brown sugar
Sweetens the filling and, as it melts, forms a syrupy, caramel-like sauce with the apple juices.
Cloves
Add a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the apples.
Short crust pastry
Encloses the filling and bakes into a crisp, golden lid and case.

The step that matters

Cut steam vents in the pastry. Apples release steam as they heat. Without vents above the rim, that pressure can build under the crust and split it or force juice out, so the skewer holes let steam escape while the tart cooks.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, 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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