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Dessert

Angelica Tar

A baked apple and angelica tart made with puff pastry and a lemon‑sugar syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Angelica and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Angelica Tar

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Peel and cut the angelica into small pieces.

Make the syrup

  1. Boil the apples in enough water to cover them with lemon peel and sugar until a thin syrup forms.

  2. Strain the syrup and boil it with the angelica for 10 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Line a tin with puff pastry, layer the apples and angelica, and pour in some syrup.

  2. Cover with a lid and bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

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. Angelica + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

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

  2. Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Golden pippins or nonpareils apples
Provide the bulk of the filling and soften into a tender, sweet layer.
Angelica stalks
Add a distinctive aromatic flavour and fibrous texture to the filling.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps it thicken as it reduces.
Puff paste
Forms the flaky, crisp pastry case that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Boil the angelica in the syrup. Boiling the angelica for the stated 10 minutes softens its fibres and draws out its flavour into the syrup. Too little time leaves it tough and bland, while too long can break it down into a mushy filling.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against angelica, lemon, sugar. 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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