Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Fruit 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.
Prepare the fruit
Wash rhubarb well, cut it into 1-inch lengths and pack it tightly in a dish.
Sprinkle rhubarb with sugar and ginger.
Clean and wash gooseberries, then place them in the dish with a little cinnamon.
Peel and thinly slice apples, sprinkle them with sugar, and add grated lemon peel or cinnamon to them.
Do not add water.
Make the crust
In a bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and butter.
Crumble butter into the flour until no lumps remain.
Add enough cold water to form a stiff paste.
Roll the paste out larger than the dish.
Wet the edges of the dish.
Cut a band of paste for the edge, place it around the dish and press down lightly to adhere.
Trim the edges.
Brush with cold water and dust with sugar.
Bake
Bake at 350°F (175°C) for one hour.
The tart is ready when it begins to bubble at the sides.
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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Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,380 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Rhubarb + cinnamontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together279 recipes
Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).
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Rhubarb + gingertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together241 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Rhubarb + flourtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together670 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Rhubarb, gooseberries, or apples
- Provide the fruit filling, whose juices and tartness flavour the tart.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the fruit and helps draw out juice during baking.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the paste that holds the tart together.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crust short and tender when rubbed into flour.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the crust rises slightly and stays light.
- Ground ginger
- Adds warm aroma that complements the tartness of rhubarb.
The step that matters
Add enough cold water to form a stiff paste. Too much water makes the crust tough, since wet flour develops gluten; keeping the paste stiff and cold keeps it short and easy to roll.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, flour, butter):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Allspicefits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against rhubarb, sugar, cinnamon, flour, 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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