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Dessert

Plum Tart

A tart made with short crust, plums, and sugar, baked until set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Plum and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,313 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Plum Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Line the edges of a deep tart dish with the short crust.

Fill and cover

  1. Fill the dish with plums and place a small cup or jar upside down in the center.

  2. Add the sugar, cover the pie with crust, and decorate the edges.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.

  2. If using puff crust, use the puff pastry recipe, glaze with beaten egg white, sprinkle with sifted sugar, and bake to set the glaze.

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. Plum + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,313 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Plums
Provide the main fruit filling, adding moisture and tart-sweet flavor as they cook.
Moist sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps the fruit juices thicken and caramelize slightly during baking.
Short crust
Forms the structure that holds the filling and browns to a crisp, tender base.

The step that matters

Place the cup or jar upside down in the center of the plums. The cup lets steam escape from the filling under the lid of crust. Without a vent, pressure can build, split the crust, and leave the filling watery.

“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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