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Dessert

Cinnamon Tarts

A puff pastry tart filled with raspberry jam and topped with an egg white, sugar, almond, and cinnamon mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Cinnamon Tarts

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Line patty pans with puff pastry.

  2. Place a small teaspoon of raspberry jam into each pan.

Bake and top

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 12 minutes.

  2. Remove from the oven and top each tart with the mixture of egg white, castor sugar, almonds, and cinnamon.

  3. Return to a cooler part of the oven for about 10 minutes.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Raspberry + almondtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together552 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Raspberry + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together326 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Puff pastry
Forms the flaky, layered shell that holds the filling.
Raspberry jam
Adds sweetness and fruity moisture beneath the topping.
Egg white
Binds the sugar, almonds and cinnamon into a topping that sets and browns.
Almonds
Add nutty texture and body to the topping.

The step that matters

Returning the tarts to a cooler part of the oven. Once the topping is added, the tarts need gentler heat so the egg white sets and the almonds toast without the sugar scorching or the pastry overbrowning before the centre is cooked.

Swap the raspberry

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, almond, cinnamon):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Raspberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, almond, cinnamon. 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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