Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
A Delicious Cherry 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 tart
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Line a pie dish with the pie crust.
Sprinkle the crust with sifted flour and dot with sweet butter.
Add the fresh cherries and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
Bake in the oven until the crust is golden.
Make the meringue and finish
Remove from the oven and prepare the meringue by beating the egg white until stiff.
Gradually add powdered sugar while continuing to beat until firm.
Spread the meringue over the tart and return to the oven until the meringue is 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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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).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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
- Pie crust
- Forms the base that holds the cherries and bakes to a golden, sturdy shell.
- Fresh cherries
- Provide the fruit filling, with juice and flavour that soften and sweeten as they bake.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the cherries and helps draw out their juice as the filling cooks.
- Egg white
- Whipped into foam, it forms the structure of the meringue topping.
- Powdered sugar
- Stabilises the whipped egg white so the meringue becomes firm and glossy.
- Sifted flour
- Lightly absorbs cherry juice so the filling thickens rather than running out.
The step that matters
Beating the egg white until stiff. Egg white must be whipped to firm peaks, with sugar added gradually, to trap air and form a stable meringue. Under-beaten or greasy whites will not hold their shape and may weep or collapse in the oven.
“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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