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Dessert

Lemon Tart

A pastry filled with lemon, sugar, cream, and eggs, baked to a golden finish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Lemon Tart

Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Tart

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Line a pudding dish with short pastry.

  2. Grate the yellow rind from the lemon and mix it with the bread crumbs.

Make the filling

  1. Add the lemon juice, sugar, and egg yolks; mix well.

  2. Stir in the cream.

  3. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the mixture.

Bake

  1. Fill the pastry with the mixture and bake in a moderate oven (350°F/175°C) for 30 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help set the filling as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add lightness and airy texture to the filling.
Lemon juice
Provides the sharp acidity that gives the tart its characteristic flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the filling and balances the lemon's acidity.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving the filling a smooth, soft texture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the filling body and a tender structure.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air, and overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, losing the light texture. Fold gently so the mixture stays airy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sugar, cream, 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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