Name: Treacle Tart
Ingredients: ½ lb treacle; 2 oz butter; 2 oz breadcrumbs; 1 lemon; Short pastry

Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Treacle Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the filling

Melt the butter and stir it into the treacle.
Add the breadcrumbs, grated rind, and juice of the lemon.

Assemble and bake

Line a plate with short pastry and decorate the edges.
Pour the mixture into the pastry and bake in a 400°F (200°C) 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.

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.

Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Treacle: Provides the main sweetness, dark flavour, and moist body of the filling.
Butter: Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the filling.
Breadcrumbs: Soak up the treacle and help the filling thicken as it bakes.
Lemon: Its juice adds acidity to balance the sweetness, and its rind adds bright aroma.
Short pastry: Holds the filling in place and forms the crisp, browned base and edges.

“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.