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Dessert

Petits Fours

Petits fours are small almond-based confections shaped into balls and baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Petits Fours

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.

Make the almond dough

  1. Blanch the almonds and remove their skins.

  2. Cook the sugar until it reaches a light syrup consistency.

  3. Add the almonds and cook slowly until they cool slightly.

  4. Before finishing cooking, add the ground cinnamon.

  5. Stir in the egg yolk and mix until firm enough to shape into balls.

Shape and bake

  1. Once cool, take portions the size of a small walnut and roll them in slightly buttered hands.

  2. Place them on a greased baking sheet and flatten slightly.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until lightly browned.

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Almond + vanillatop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sweet almonds
Form the bulk of the dough, giving the petits fours their body and nutty flavor.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the almond mixture set into a firm, shapeable dough.
Egg yolk
Binds the almond mixture together and adds richness to the dough.
Vanilla
Adds aroma that rounds out the almond flavor.
Ground cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the almond dough.

The step that matters

Stir in the egg yolk and mix until firm enough to shape. The almond and sugar mixture stiffens as it cools, and the yolk should be mixed in only until the dough holds its shape. A soft or overworked mixture tends to spread flat when baked.

“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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