Name: Orange Tart
Ingredients: juice of 1 sweet orange; 2 cups stewed apples; 2 teaspoons sifted sugar; puff pastry

Why it works: Orange and apple match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Orange Tart

Ingredients

juice of 1 sweet orange
2 cups stewed apples
2 teaspoons sifted sugar
puff pastry

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the filling

Squeeze the juice of the orange over the stewed apples.
Add the sifted sugar and mix gently.

Assemble and bake

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a shallow dish with puff pastry.
Spread the apple mixture in the dish and cover with more pastry.
Bake until golden brown, then ice if serving 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.

Orange + appletop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,230 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together16,478 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Orange juice: Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma that balances the sweetness of the apples.
Stewed apples: Form the bulk of the filling and supply moisture and soft texture.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the top pastry brown in the oven.
Puff pastry: Forms a crisp, flaky crust that encloses the filling and gives structure.