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Dessert

Congress Tarts

A pastry tart filled with almond and butter mixture, topped with pastry strips and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond 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 ↓

Congress Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pastry

  1. Combine flour and sugar in a bowl, then rub in the butter.

  2. Add baking powder and mix in enough water to form a stiff paste.

  3. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and roll it out to ¼ inch thick.

  4. Line patty pans with the pastry and place a little jam at the bottom.

Make the filling and bake

  1. Beat the butter until creamy, then add sugar, corn flour, two yolks, and one egg white.

  2. Mix in the pounded almonds and essence of almonds, then fold in the beaten egg white.

  3. Half fill the patty pans with the mixture, place two strips of pastry crosswise on each, and brush with egg white.

  4. Dust sugar over the top and bake for about 20 minutes at 400°F (200°C).

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + corntop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the filling a light, rich texture and carries flavour.
Pounded almonds
Add body and a moist, tender crumb to the filling along with their almond flavour.
Egg whites
Beaten whites fold in air for lift, and brushed whites help the pastry strips brown.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the filling into a smooth, set custard-like texture.
Flour
Forms the structure of the pastry shell that holds the filling.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg white. Folding gently keeps the air in the beaten white so the filling stays light; stirring hard would deflate it and make the filling dense.

“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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