Why it works: Almond and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 18% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,679 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓
Toad-in-a-hole Biscuits
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Pound the sweet and bitter almonds in a mortar until very fine, adding water as needed.
Mix the ground almonds with the granulated sugar until well combined; do not make it too thin.
Shape and top
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place wafer paper on top.
Using a spoon, form the mixture into round biscuits about the size of a half-crown piece on the wafer paper.
Place one or two dried cherries in the center of each biscuit and sift powdered sugar over them.
Bake and finish
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.
Once baked, cut the wafer paper around the biscuits, leaving the paper at the bottom.
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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Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together15,679 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sweet almonds
- Form the main body of the biscuit, giving it its structure and nutty flavor.
- Bitter almonds
- Add a sharper, more intense almond aroma that balances the sweetness.
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the biscuit and helps bind the ground almonds into a dough.
- Dried cherries
- Add chewy texture and fruity sweetness to each biscuit.
The step that matters
Mixing the almond paste to the right consistency. If the mixture is too thin, the biscuits will spread and lose their shape in the oven. Keeping it firm lets each biscuit hold its round form while baking.
“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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