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Dessert

Orange Tart

A tart made with Seville orange pulp, sugar, butter, and a pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,058 recipes. Both carry 2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Orange 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 filling

  1. Boil the Seville oranges in four different waters until tender to remove bitterness.

  2. Squeeze and pulp the oranges, then weigh the pulp.

  3. Add double the weight of the pulp in pounded white sugar.

  4. Beat the mixture to a paste and add the butter.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a pie crust and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Orange + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Orange + sugartop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Orange + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Orange and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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

Seville oranges
Provide the tart, bitter citrus flavour that gives the filling its character.
White sugar
Sweetens the filling and, with the pulp, forms a thick paste that sets when baked.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother, softer texture to the filling.
Pie crust
Holds the filling in shape while it bakes.

The step that matters

Boiling the oranges in four changes of water. Boiling in several changes of water softens the peel and draws out bitterness. Too little boiling leaves the tart harsh, while the cooked pulp must be weighed accurately so the sugar ratio sets the filling properly.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, walnut, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, walnut, butter. 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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