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Dessert

Bakewell Tart

A short crust pastry tart filled with raspberry jam and a sweet almond mixture, topped with folded egg white.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Raspberry and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 552 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Bakewell 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

  2. Roll out the short crust pastry and line a tart pan.

  3. Spread the raspberry jam evenly over the pastry base.

Make the filling

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and caster sugar.

  2. Add the ground almonds, egg yolks, and almond extract; mix well.

  3. Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold it into the almond mixture.

  4. Spread the almond mixture over the jam layer.

Bake

  1. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Almond + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Raspberry + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp base that holds the jam and filling.
Raspberry jam
Adds fruity sweetness and moisture under the almond layer.
Ground almonds
Provide the dense, moist body of the almond filling.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it traps air for a tender texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help bind it while adding richness.
Egg white
Whisked to stiff peaks, it lightens the filling and helps it rise and set.

The step that matters

Folding in the whisked egg white. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles from the stiff egg white intact. Overmixing deflates them, leaving a denser, less light almond filling after baking.

Swap the raspberry

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, butter, egg. 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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