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Quince-and-Apple Tart

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Quince and apple work together. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 506 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Quince-and-Apple 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.

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Butter a shallow dish and line it with puff pastry.

  3. Spread a thick layer of quince marmalade in the dish.

  4. Peel and core the cooking apples, cutting them into small, equal shapes.

  5. Arrange the apple pieces in a star shape over the marmalade, overlapping each slice.

  6. Sprinkle plenty of moist sugar over the apples and add small bits of butter on top.

  7. Bake in the preheated oven until cooked, then serve hot or cold.

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. Quince + appletop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together506 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + quincetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Swap the quince

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

  1. Pearfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Quincethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, apple, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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