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 ↓
For Tartlets
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix the flour, butter, sugar, almond paste, and egg yolks in a bowl.
Add a few drops of rose or orange-flower water and beat until very smooth.
Shape the tartlets
Cover small tart pans with the mixture and cut out flat or raised covers.
If using raised covers, bake them on tart pans turned upside down.
Ensure the covers are very open and do not fill them until ready to bake.
Fill with frangipanes, fried creams, or other fillings before baking.
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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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Almond + rosetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together1,465 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the tartlet shape after baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for a tender, crumbly texture and rich flavour.
- Egg yolks
- Add richness and bind the dough together.
- Almond paste
- Contributes sweetness and a nutty aroma to the dough.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and aids browning in the oven.
The step that matters
Beating the dough until very smooth. Thorough beating evenly distributes the butter, sugar and yolks so the dough bakes uniformly without streaks or lumps, giving a consistent texture across each tartlet.
“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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