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Dessert

Italian Water Biscuits

A light, airy biscuit made from eggs, powdered sugar, and flour, baked briefly and then dried to crispness.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Italian Water Biscuits

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Whisk together the yolks and whites of 6 eggs with 1 ½ cups powdered sugar for 30 minutes.

  3. Add 1 ½ cups sifted flour and mix until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut a piece of wood into a round ring, about the size of a large breakfast cup and ⅛ inch thick, with a handle. Spread a tablespoon of batter into the ring until filled.

  2. Lift the wood to reveal the cake on the paper, ensuring they do not touch. Bake in the hot oven for 5 minutes, watching to prevent burning.

Cool and dry

  1. Let the biscuits cool completely, then wet the paper to remove them easily.

  2. Return them to the oven to dry and crisp.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

Egg and flour 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

Eggs
Whipped with sugar to trap air, giving the biscuits lightness and structure.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the biscuits and helps the whipped eggs hold their foam.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking the thin rounds. The batter spreads into very thin layers that can scorch quickly in a hot oven, so they need close watching. Keeping the rounds separate prevents them fusing as they expand.

“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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