Name: Apple Tart
Ingredients: 1 tin apples; ½ cup sugar; 1 lemon (juice and peel); 12 cloves; ⅓ cup sherry; ½ lb puff or short crust pastry

Why it works: Apple and clove are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,774 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Apple Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Prepare the pastry by following your preferred recipe and create a rim around the edge of a pie dish.

Fill and bake

In a bowl, combine the apples, sugar to taste, lemon peel, lemon juice, cloves, and sherry, then stir the mixture together and pour it into the prepared pastry shell.
Cover with the remaining pastry and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 30-40 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.

Apple + clovetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,774 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Apple + sherrytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together395 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Clove + sherrytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,237 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Apples: Provide the main bulk and soft, cooked fruit texture that forms the tart's filling.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps draw moisture from the apples into a syrupy filling.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the apple flavour and helps keep the fruit from tasting flat.
Puff or short crust pastry: Forms the structure that encloses the filling and browns in the oven.
Sherry: Adds aromatic depth and a warm, fruity note to the apple filling.