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 ↓
Macaroon Tart
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the crust
Make a paste with flour, sugar, butter, and eggs.
Roll out part of the paste to ¼ inch thick and spread it in a round shallow cake pan about ½ inch deep.
Bake very slightly until just set.
Decorate and finish
Once cold, spread a thin layer of jam or jelly on top.
Using a piping bag with a star tube, pipe stripes of macaroon paste over the jam.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until nice and brown.
After baking, add icing between the macaroon stripes.
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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Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,673 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,245 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure of the pastry crust.
- Butter
- Adds fat that makes the crust tender and rich.
- Eggs
- Bind the crust paste and add structure and richness.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the top brown during baking.
- Almond paste
- Gives the macaroon stripes their chewy texture and almond flavour.
- Egg whites
- Whipped into the macaroon mixture to give it lightness and structure as it sets.
The step that matters
Spread the jam only once the crust is cold. A warm crust softens the jam and makes it run, so it cannot hold a clean layer under the piped stripes.
“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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