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Dessert

Millefruit Biscuits

A biscuit made with preserved orange and lemon peel, angelico, and almonds, iced with egg whites, sugar, and orange flower water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Millefruit 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

  1. Cut the preserved orange peel, angelico, and preserved lemon peel into pieces about ½ inch long and ¼ inch wide.

  2. Chop the sweet and bitter almonds.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine the egg whites, sugar, and orange flower water to make icing.

  2. Add the cut fruit and nuts to the icing and mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

  2. Brush it with cochineal color for decoration.

  3. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  4. Place the biscuits inside to dry the icing.

  5. Allow the biscuits to cool completely before removing them from the baking sheet.

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. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + almondtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

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

Whites of eggs
Bind the icing and give the biscuits structure as they dry and set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps form the glossy icing that coats the fruit and nuts.
Sweet almonds
Add body and a nutty texture that contrasts with the soft candied fruit.
Preserved orange peel
Adds bright citrus aroma and a chewy, sweet-tart flavour.

The step that matters

Drying the biscuits in the oven. Egg white icing sets by drying rather than browning. If the oven is too hot, the outside can colour or puff before the icing dries through, so keep the heat gentle and let the biscuits cool fully before lifting them.

“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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