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Dessert

Fine Almond Faggots

Almond faggots are sweet almond balls bound with egg whites and powdered sugar, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fine Almond Faggots

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 mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the halved almonds and egg whites.

  2. Add powdered sugar to help the almonds stick together and mix well.

Form and bake

  1. Place wafer paper on a wire rack.

  2. Form small heaps of the almond mixture with your fingers and place them on the wafer paper.

  3. Sift a little powdered sugar over the almond heaps.

  4. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until lightly browned.

  5. Remove from the oven and cut the wafer paper around the faggots, leaving it at the bottom.

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

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

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

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

  3. Almond + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,645 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 faggots.
Egg whites
Bind the halved almonds together so they hold their heaped shape.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the almonds stick together, and browns lightly in the oven.

The step that matters

Baking until lightly browned. Egg whites and sugar brown quickly once heated, so the faggots can darken or burn if left too long. Pulling them at light browning keeps them sweet and tender rather than bitter.

Swap the almond

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

  1. Pecansfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Milletfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, 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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