Why it works: Egg and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Jelly 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Beat the yolks of the eggs.
Mix the beaten yolks with the creamed sugar and butter.
Fold in the frothed egg whites.
Add the tart jelly.
Add the orange juice and mix well.
Bake
Line a pie dish with the crust.
Pour the filling into the lined dish.
Bake for about 45 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.
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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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
-
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
-
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,212 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
-
Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + orangetop 23% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,301 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar and orange 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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich and bind the filling, while whipped whites add lightness and structure as it sets.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps give the filling a tender, soft texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the baked filling.
- Tart jelly
- Provides concentrated fruit flavor, acidity and sweetness that balance the richness.
The step that matters
Fold in the frothed egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring hard deflates them, which leaves the tart denser and less light after baking.
Swap the orange
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Orangethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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