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Dessert

Syringe Biscuits

Almond biscuits made with powdered sugar, lemon rind, and egg whites, formed into syringe shapes and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,655 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Syringe Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the paste

  1. Pound the almonds in a marble mortar until very fine, adding egg whites as needed to prevent oiliness.

  2. Mix the ground almonds with the grated lemon rind and powdered sugar to form a paste.

Shape the biscuits

  1. Prepare a copper syringe mold, filling it halfway with the paste.

  2. Use a wooden rammer to squeeze the paste out onto a floured surface, cutting it into 3-inch pieces.

  3. Join the pieces in rings and place them on three sheets of paper to prevent burning.

Bake

  1. Bake in a very brisk oven (400°F / 200°C).

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 + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Provide the main body and nutty flavor of the paste once ground fine.
Egg whites
Bind the ground almonds into a workable paste and reduce oiliness.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the paste and adds bulk so it holds its shape when pressed.
Lemon rind
Adds aromatic citrus oil and fragrance to the biscuits.

The step that matters

Grinding the almonds with egg white. Almonds release oil as they are pounded, so adding egg white in small amounts keeps the paste from turning greasy and helps it bind into a smooth dough that holds its shape.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, lemon, sugar):

  1. Pistachiofits about as well
  2. Milletfits about as well
  3. Almondthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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