Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Apricot Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the apricots
Combine 2 tablespoons of sugar and apricot juice in a pan.
Boil the mixture.
Add the apricots and stew until cool.
Make the pastry
In another bowl, mix flour and 4 tablespoons of sugar.
Rub in the butter.
Add the egg yolk and enough water to form a stiff paste.
Roll out the paste and line a greased tart tin.
Bake and finish
Spread the apricot mixture over the pastry.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.
Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff.
Spread the beaten egg whites over the apricots.
Brown the tart for 1 minute in the oven.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,098 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Apricot + buttertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,458 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
-
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Apricots
- Provide the main fruit filling and most of the tart's flavour and moisture.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the pastry that holds the filling.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the pastry tender and crumbly when rubbed in.
- Egg whites
- Beaten until stiff, they form a light topping that sets and browns in the oven.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the pastry dough and adds richness to the pastry.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the filling and pastry and helps the meringue-style topping hold its shape.
The step that matters
Beating the egg whites until stiff. Egg whites must be beaten until they hold firm peaks; under-beaten whites stay runny and spread into the apricots, while the sugar helps stabilise the foam so the topping sets and browns.
Swap the apricot
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, lemon, flour, butter, egg):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Apricotthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, lemon, flour, butter, egg. 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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