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Almond Crips

Almond Crips are almond-based pastries baked and sliced, coated with icing and pistachios.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Crips

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Beat the almonds in a mortar with orange flower water until a fine paste forms.

  2. Add sugar, flour, whole eggs, egg yolk, and orange zest to the almond paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape the mixture into a log using a rolling pin.

  2. Brush the log with egg wash and place it on a buttered baking sheet.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until done.

Slice and finish

  1. While hot, cut into thin slices and dry them in the oven.

  2. Moisten the edges of the slices with Royal Icing.

  3. Dip the moistened edges in finely chopped pistachios and let them dry for a few minutes.

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 + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Almonds
Form the bulk of the paste and supply fat and flavour for a rich, tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during baking.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so the log holds its shape when sliced.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set during baking to hold the log together.
Orange flower water
Adds a floral aroma that suits the almond and orange flavours.

The step that matters

Cutting the log while hot. As the baked log cools it firms and becomes harder to cut cleanly. Slicing while still hot keeps the slices intact, and drying them in the oven removes moisture so they crisp.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, sugar, flour, egg. 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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