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Dessert

Apple Tart

A baked tart of sliced apples layered with spices, wine, and butter, topped with puff pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Tart

Ingredients

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.

Prepare

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

  2. Pare, core, and cut the apples into small pieces.

Assemble

  1. Line a dish with puff pastry and place the apple pieces inside.

  2. Strew pounded sugar, cinnamon, mace, nutmeg, cloves, and chopped lemon peel over the apples.

  3. Add another layer of apples followed by spices until the dish is full.

  4. Pour 1½ cups of white wine over the mixture.

Bake and finish

  1. Cover with puff pastry and bake until golden.

  2. Once done, raise the crust and stir in 2 ounces of fresh butter and 2 beaten eggs.

  3. Replace the crust and 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Apples
Form the bulk of the filling and give the tart its soft, tender texture.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps balance the tartness of the apples.
Puff pastry
Forms a flaky, golden crust that encloses and holds the filling.
White wine
Adds moisture and a light acidity that brightens the apple filling.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, rounded flavour to the filling.
Eggs
Enrich and bind the filling, helping it thicken and hold together when cooked.

The step that matters

Stirring in the butter and beaten eggs. Stir the beaten eggs gently and evenly into the filling so they blend smoothly. Egg proteins set when heated, so uneven mixing can leave cooked lumps.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, lemon, white wine):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Fennelfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, lemon, white wine. 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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