Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
A Good 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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Prepare a tart dish with a border of puff-paste or cream-crust.
Dip the apples in water and arrange them compactly in the dish, higher in the center.
Bake and finish
Sprinkle the pounded sugar over the apples.
Add the grated rind and juice of half a lemon for flavor.
If desired, after baking, attach ready-baked almond-paste leaves with a little egg white.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,655 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + almondtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,025 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Cream + almondtop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,130 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
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 tart and soften into a tender filling as they bake.
- Pounded sugar
- Sweetens the apples and draws out juices that help form a syrupy filling.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the apples.
- Puff-paste or cream-crust
- Forms the tart shell that holds the apples and browns around the edge.
The step that matters
Arranging the apples compactly, higher in the center. Tightly packed apples hold their shape and support each other, so the tart does not collapse or go watery. Raising the center keeps the filling level as the apples shrink while baking.
Swap the almond
The recipe marks almond as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, sugar, lemon, cream, egg):
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Almondthe original
- Pistachiofits about as well
- Hazelnutfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, lemon, cream, 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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