Name: Almond Tart
Ingredients: ½ cup sifted sugar; ¼ pound sweet almonds; ¼ cup all-purpose flour

Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Tart

Ingredients

½ cup sifted sugar
¼ pound sweet almonds
¼ cup all-purpose flour

Directions

Prepare the dough

Peel and finely grind the almonds in a mortar.
Mix the ground almonds with the sugar to form a smooth paste.
Transfer the mixture to a baking board and knead in the flour.

Shape and bake

Roll the dough to 1 inch thick and shape it neatly.
Prick the surface and bake until golden.

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.

Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,679 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sweet almonds: Provide the main flavour and fat, giving the tart a rich, tender body.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps keep it tender.
All-purpose flour: Adds structure so the dough holds its shape when rolled and baked.