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Dessert

Swiss Tarts

A small tart made with flour, butter, sugar, egg, baking powder, lemon rind, and raspberry jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and raspberry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,109 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Swiss Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line twelve small patty pans with pastry.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and mix alternately with the flour.

  3. Stir in the baking powder and lemon rind.

Fill and bake

  1. Place a little raspberry jam in each patty pan.

  2. Top each jam layer with a teaspoon of the mixture.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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. Lemon + raspberrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,109 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + raspberrytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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 trap air and add richness and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the tart mixture together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the mixture and adds moisture and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the mixture rises and becomes light.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity acidity beneath the baked topping.

The step that matters

Bake until golden. Baking too little leaves the centre doughy, while overbaking dries the crumb and can burn the sugar. Golden colour signals that the sugars have browned and the structure has set.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, lemon, butter, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, lemon, butter, egg. 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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