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Dessert

Apple Tart

A tart of mashed apples mixed with eggs, nutmeg, and butter, baked in puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,790 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Scald the apples and let them cool.

  2. Remove the skins and mash the pulp until fine.

Make the filling

  1. Mix the apple pulp with the egg yolks and beaten egg whites.

  2. Add nutmeg and sweeten to taste.

  3. Melt butter and beat until it reaches the consistency of thick cream.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the puff pastry and line a tin patty pan with it.

  2. Pour the apple mixture into the pastry, leaving it uncovered.

  3. Bake for 15 minutes, then transfer to a dish and sprinkle with sifted sugar.

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 + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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
Provide the main body and flavour of the filling once mashed into a pulp.
Egg yolks
Enrich the filling and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Egg whites
Add lightness and structure to the filling as they hold air and set.
Puff pastry
Forms the crisp, flaky case that holds the apple filling.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to a smooth, creamy texture.

The step that matters

Beating the egg whites into the apple mixture. Egg whites must be beaten to a stable foam and folded in gently; overmixing deflates the air they hold, which affects lightness and how the filling sets in the oven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Applethe original

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

More apple tart recipes

German 11Creamed 9Banana 3Young Green 3 See all 113 →

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