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Lemon Tartiets

A lemon tart made with lemon juice, rind, sugar, eggs, sponge cake crumbs, and puff pastry lining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 53,532 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Lemon Tartiets

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the lemon juice, grated rind, sugar, eggs, and sponge cake crumbs until smooth.

  2. Line twelve patty-pans with puff paste.

Bake

  1. Fill the lined patty-pans with the lemon mixture.

  2. Bake until the crust is done.

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. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Eggs
Set the filling into a custard as they cook, giving the tart structure.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the sharpness of the lemon juice.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that defines the tart's flavour.
Sponge cake crumbs
Add body to the filling so it holds together rather than running thin.
Puff paste
Forms the flaky crust that holds the filling in each patty-pan.

The step that matters

Bake until the crust is done. The filling is egg-set, so it sets as it bakes; underbaking leaves a runny centre, while overbaking can make the eggs curdle and turn grainy. The crust should be fully cooked to stay crisp under the filling.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Datesfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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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