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Dessert

Apricot Tart

A pastry tart filled with apricots simmered in juice and sugar, topped with a corn flour custard and optional almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Tart

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the crust

  1. Grease a deep pie dish and line it with short crust pastry.

  2. Roll out a long strip of pastry and cut out a dozen rounds with a wine glass, fluting the edges with a fork.

  3. Place the rounds on a floured baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Put crusts of stale bread in the pie dish to prevent bubbling and bake as well.

  5. Once the pastry is done, remove the bread crusts and let both the pastry and fruit cool.

Make the fruit and custard

  1. Open the tin of apricots, placing all the fruit and ¾ cup of juice in a bowl.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar and gently simmer for about 15 minutes, being careful not to break the fruit.

  3. In a bowl, mix 1 tablespoon of corn flour with a beaten egg, then add 2 cups of milk and 1 heaped teaspoon of sugar.

  4. Cook over low heat, stirring until thickened, about 5 minutes.

  5. Add 3 drops of almond essence and stir occasionally.

Assemble and chill

  1. Pour the mixture over the cooled fruit and place the pastry rounds on top, overlapping them.

  2. If using, finely chop the blanched almonds and scatter over the top.

  3. Chill the tart before serving.

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apricot + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Corn + almondtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together485 recipes

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

  4. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Short crust pastry
Forms the crisp base and the rounds that top the tart.
Apricots
Provide the main fruit flavour and soft, juicy filling.
Egg
Helps thicken and set the custard as it cooks.
Corn flour
Thickens the milk custard so it holds its shape.
Milk
Forms the body of the custard, adding richness and softness.

The step that matters

Cook the custard over low heat. Gentle heat and constant stirring keep the egg and corn flour from scorching or lumping, so the custard thickens smoothly.

“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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