Name: Tarts and Puffs
Ingredients: Butter for greasing; Fine sugar; Cherries, plums, or other fruit; Lemon peel; Lemon juice; Water; Puff pastry

Why it works: Plum and lemon work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 623 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Tarts and Puffs

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Grease tin pans with butter and line with a thin layer of puff pastry.
Place fine sugar at the bottom of each patty.

Fill and bake

Add your chosen fruit, then sprinkle more sugar on top.
Pour 1 teaspoon of lemon juice and 3 teaspoons of water over each tart.
Cover with a lid of puff pastry and bake in the oven until golden.
For preserved fruits, simply layer the fruit and cover with a thin crust before baking.

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.

Plum + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together623 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Butter + plumtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together710 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon 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

Puff pastry: Forms the flaky crust and lid that hold the filling and turn golden in the oven.
Fine sugar: Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juices as the tarts bake.
Cherries, plums, or other fruit: Provides the main filling, with its sweetness and juices soaking into the pastry.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the sweetness of the fruit.