Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Tart

Apple Tart is a baked pastry filled with sliced apples, lime rind, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Apple and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,478 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple 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 apples

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

  2. Place the sliced apples in an enamel pie dish.

  3. Add cold water, sugar, lime rind, and apple cores.

  4. Cover the apples.

  5. Gently cook in the oven until just done.

  6. Remove the cores.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place an egg cup in the center.

  2. Cover with short crust pastry.

  3. Brush the pastry with beaten egg white.

  4. Sprinkle a little sugar on top.

  5. Decorate with twisted pastry strips or small rounds.

Serve

  1. Serve with custard or cream.

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. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Apple + limetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together231 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + limetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,332 recipes

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

  5. Apple + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,461 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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

Apples
Provide the main filling, softening during gentle cooking to form the tart's body.
Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp, sturdy top crust that encloses the fruit.
Egg white
Brushed on the pastry to promote browning and a glossy finish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the apples and a light crust sparkle on top.

The step that matters

Gently cook the apples until just done. Apples cooked too long turn to mush and release excess liquid, which can make the pastry soggy. Stopping when they are just tender keeps their shape and texture under the crust.

Swap the lime

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Limethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, sugar, 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.

More apple tart recipes

German 11Creamed 9Banana 3Young Green 3 See all 113 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesApple CakeApple Cake80 recipesApple MeringueApple Meringue75 recipesDried Apple CakeDried Apple Cake51 recipes