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Dessert

Macaroon Tarts

A sweet tart made with ground almonds, ground rice, sugar, eggs, milk, and almond flavoring, topped with jam and pastry.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,456 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Macaroon Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the filling

  1. In a bowl, mix together ground almonds, ground rice, and castor sugar.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and milk with a few drops of almond flavoring.

Assemble the tarts

  1. Line pastry tins with the pastry and place a small amount of jam in each.

  2. Fill the tins with the almond mixture and place two thin strips of pastry across the top.

Bake

  1. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Almond + ricetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Rice + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,374 recipes

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

  3. Almond + milktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Ground almonds
Provides the moist, tender, nutty body of the macaroon filling.
Ground rice
Adds a slightly grainy structure that helps the filling hold its shape when baked.
Eggs
Bind the filling and set on baking, giving it structure and a custardy texture.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the filling and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture so the mixture bakes soft rather than dry.

The step that matters

Fill the tins with the almond mixture and place two thin strips of pastry across the top.. Filling too full can cause the mixture to overflow and bake unevenly, while the pastry strips need to lie flat so the tart bakes evenly and the filling stays moist.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, sugar, egg, milk):

  1. Almondthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Milletfits about as well
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, sugar, egg, milk. 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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