Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Lemon 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.
Make the filling
Moisten the cornflour with a little water.
Bring the rest of the water to a boil with the lemon juice, grated lemon rind, and sugar.
Thicken the mixture with the cornflour and let it simmer for a few minutes, then set aside to cool.
Beat the eggs and mix them well with the cooled mixture and the remaining ingredients.
Assemble and bake
Line a flat dish or pie plate with pastry.
Pour the mixture into the pastry shell and cover with thin strips of pastry in a diamond shape.
Bake the tart at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Set the filling into a sliceable custard as they coagulate during baking.
- Cornflour
- Thickens the lemon liquid into a smooth, glossy filling when simmered.
- Lemon
- Provides the sharp acidity and fragrant aroma that define the filling.
- Sugar
- Balances the lemon's acidity with sweetness.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the filling and pastry.
- All-purpose flour
- Builds the structure of the pastry shell and lattice.
The step that matters
Cool the cornflour mixture before adding the eggs. Beaten eggs added to a very hot mixture can scramble and curdle, because egg proteins set with heat. Cooling it first keeps the filling smooth and even.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, sugar, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, sugar, flour. 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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