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Dessert

Apple Tarts

Apple tarts made with apples, lemon peel, water, cinnamon, sugar, cloves syrup, and puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Apple Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the apples

  1. Pare the apples.

  2. Core the apples.

  3. Quarter the apples.

Make the apple mixture

  1. Place the apples in a saucepan with lemon peel, water, and cinnamon.

  2. Cover the apples.

  3. Cook over medium heat until the apples dissolve.

  4. Sweeten with sifted sugar.

  5. Add syrup of cloves.

  6. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a tart pan with puff pastry.

  2. Fill the pastry with the apple mixture.

  3. Cover with more pastry.

  4. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and its fruity flavor and soft texture once cooked.
Sifted sugar
Sweetens the apple mixture and balances its tartness.
Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, buttery crust that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Syrup of cloves
Adds a warm, spiced aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Cooked apples contain fibrous pulp and skins that stay coarse if not strained. Pressing the mixture through a fine sieve yields a smooth, even filling that sits neatly inside the pastry.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, cinnamon, sugar, syrup, clove. 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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