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Dessert

Creamed Pear or Apple Tart

A tart of simmered apples in sugar, wine, and spices, topped with custard and garnished with almonds and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Creamed Pear or Apple Tart

Ingredients

Directions

Make the apple filling

  1. Slice the apples and place them in a saucepan with clarified sugar, wine, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Simmer until the apples are clear.

Assemble and bake

  1. Prepare a dish by laying in some chipped almonds and citron.

  2. Add the cooked apples and sprinkle more almonds on top.

  3. Fill the dish with custard and bake until the border is done.

Finish and serve

  1. Grate sugar, almonds, and citron over the tart before serving.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Pippins (apples)
Provide the main fruit body, softening as they simmer to form the filling.
Clarified sugar
Sweetens the apples and helps them hold together as they cook in the syrup.
Wine
Adds acidity and liquid to the simmering apples, giving a lightly tangy flavour.
Custard
Sets in the oven to form the creamy layer that fills the tart.
Chipped almonds
Add nutty flavour and a crisp texture on the base and top.

The step that matters

Simmer until the apples are clear. Cooking the apples fully before they go into the tart softens them and drives off excess liquid. Underdone apples would release water into the custard and stay firm, while overcooked apples would turn to mush.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Hazelnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, wine, cinnamon, clove. 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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