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Angelica-Tarts

Apple tarts flavored with angelica, cooked in a syrup of lemon peel and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Angelica and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 189 recipes. Both carry (e,e)-2,4-decadienal, which smells fatty, deep fried. The science ↓

Angelica-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. Pare and core the apples.

  2. Peel and cut the angelica into small pieces.

  3. Boil the apples in enough water to cover them.

  4. Add lemon peel and fine sugar, and cook gently until a thin syrup forms.

  5. Strain the syrup.

  6. Return the syrup to the fire with the angelica.

  7. Boil for 10 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place pastry in the bottom of patty pans.

  2. Layer the apples and angelica in the pans until full.

  3. Pour some syrup over the layers.

  4. Cover with a lid.

  5. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven.

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. Angelica + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together189 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  2. Apple + angelicatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

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

  4. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide the main body and flavour of the filling, softening as they cook in the syrup.
Angelica
Adds its distinctive aromatic flavour to the syrup and filling.
Fine sugar
Sweetens the syrup and helps form its thin body.
Pastry
Forms the structural shell that holds the filling in each tart.

The step that matters

Strain the syrup before returning it to the fire. Removing the apple solids leaves a clear, thin syrup that can be boiled down properly; leftover pieces would make the syrup cloudy and uneven.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against angelica, lemon, sugar. 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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