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 ↓
Raspberry Tart
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare and bake the base
Roll out the puff pastry and lay it in a tart pan.
Add raspberries and sprinkle with fine sugar.
Cover with a lid and bake until golden.
Fill and finish
Cut open the tart and fill with cream, beaten egg yolks, and a little sugar.
Return to the oven and bake until set.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together42,166 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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 a crisp, flaky shell that holds the filling.
- Raspberries
- Provide tart fruit flavour and juicy moisture under the filling.
- Fine sugar
- Sweetens the raspberries and helps them release their juices.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, soft texture to the filling.
- Egg yolks
- Thicken the cream mixture as they set, giving a custard-like filling.
The step that matters
Baking until set. Egg yolks set when their proteins coagulate with gentle heat. Overbaking pushes them too far, causing the custard to curdle, weep, or turn grainy, so check for a set centre rather than baking to a fixed time.
“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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